What is fascial gap syndrome?

  When a fracture occurs, the fracture break bleeds and at the same time the soft tissues around the fracture break develop sterile inflammation, which can cause significant swelling of the soft tissues such as the muscles around the fracture break. Normally swelling after a fracture does not cause serious problems, however, in the lower leg as well as the forearm, tough fascia exists between the muscles, forming a dense fascial gap. Once the muscles within the gap are severely swollen, coupled with bleeding, the pressure within the gap will rise sharply, which will severely compress the blood vessels and nerves, resulting in poor distal blood circulation and even ischemic necrosis, a phenomenon that becomes fascial gap syndrome. There are five main manifestations, namely pallor, pulselessness, sensory numbness, abnormal sensation, and severe pain, because these five words begin with P, so it also becomes “5P” syndrome. Reduction of tension.  Once the fascial gap syndrome occurs, it will eventually lead to ischemic necrosis of the distal limb, and an emergency incision must be performed to reduce the pressure in the fascial gap so that the blood vessels and nerves are no longer under pressure, otherwise, once the tissue necrosis occurs, only amputation can be performed. After surgical incision and reduction, mesh incision and reduction is possible if necessary, and suturing is performed twice.