Short summary

The project aim to find an association between specified fracture specific radiological variables and treatment failure of patients with a humeral shaft fracture.

The setting includes 12 hospitals in Denmark. The endpoint is treatment failure within 52 weeks.

Rationale

Treatment with non-surgical approach has shown non-union rates of 25%. The problem is that their is little knowledge on which patients have higher risk of developing this problem.

To aid clinicians with the decision-making of treatment we have planned a multicenter study that will investigate the association between treatment failure and fracture-specific characteristics (fracture-location, fracture-extension, fracture-pattern, fracture displacement) in humeral shaft fractures at 52 weeks among non-surgical treated patients. Treatment failure is defined as; secondary fixation or permanent non-surgical treatment.

Description of the cohort

Adult humeral shaft fractures from all the hospitals in the Capital region, the region of Southern Denmark and Region of Zealand.

Data and biological material

Patient specific parameters: Age, sex, dominant hand, comorbidities (alcohol, smoking, diabetes, history of psychiatric illness), mechanism of injury, radial palsy.

Radiographic parameters: Fracture side, pattern, location and displacement, bone-arm index.

Treatment specific parameters: Date of diagnosis, Date of completed hospital course, amount of follow-up, time to treatment failure, treatment type, secondary treatment type, hospital, region.