Treatment of neglected elbow dislocations with the help of hinged external fixator: Report of two cases

• Main Authors: Özgür Karakoyun, Mehmet Fatih Erol, Metin Küçükkaya
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Modestum Publishing LTD 2014-06-01
• Series: Journal of Clinical and Experimental Investigations
• Subjects: elbow; neglected dislocation
• Online Access: http://jceionline.org/upload/sayi/22/JCEI-00956.pdf

Elbow dislocations are cases that have to be treated in emergency conditions. Neglected elbow dislocations are seen very rarely and the treatment of such cases are more complicated than acute cases. We present two cases of neglected elbow dislocations treated with open reduction and hinged external fixators. Case 1: 23 year old female patient had a neglected posterior dislocation of left elbow with ipsilateral humeral shaft fracture caused by car accident. The patient was treated after 3 months of initial trauma. We have performed open reduction for the joint. After that we fixed the joint whit a hinged external fixator. The humeral shaft fracture was also fixed with the components of the external fixator. Case 2: 33 year male patient had a large bone and soft tissue defect around the left elbow accompanying with neglected medial elbow dislocation. He presented to our clinic with a delay of 2 months. The patient was treated with open reduction and hinged external fixator after reconstruction of bone defect of distal humerus. Conclusion: The treatment of neglected cases is quite challenging. Open reduction and external fixation has satisfactory results in treatment of late cases of elbow dislocation with the possibility of early rehabilitation. This method can be considered as an option for such cases. J Clin Exp Invest 2014; 5 (2): 443-446