Citation

Giacalone M, Capua T, Shavit I. Contemp. Clin. Trials Commun. 2018; 11: 46-49.

Affiliation

Emergency Department, Ruth Children's Hospital, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.conctc.2018.06.003

PMID

30003167

PMCID

PMC6040576

Abstract

Distal forearm fracture is the most common fracture in childhood. Patients with this type of injury suffer from meaningful pain after Emergency Department (ED) discharge. Previous studies demonstrated that short arm (below-the-elbow) casts perform as well as long arm (above-the-elbow) casts for maintaining the reduction of distal forearm fractures, with a similar rate of complications. Consequently, short casts are the commonly used method of immobilization after closed reduction of a distal forearm fractures in children older than 4 years. However, short casts carry a potential disadvantage; since they cannot prevent supination in a wrist that is held in pronation, and vice versa, their use might be associated with pain. We initiated this study to examine the effect of the type of casting on post discharge pain. We will conduct an open-label randomized, controlled trial comparing short cast immobilization with long cast immobilization in children who had a reduction of distal forearm fracture in the ED. Our hypothesis is that children with distal forearm fractures who are treated with a long cast, experience less pain during the first 48 h after ED discharge than children who are treated with a short cast.

Language: en

Keywords

Cast; Children; DFF, distal forearm fracture; ED, emergency department; Fracture; Pain