Floating Knee
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Introduction[edit | edit source]
The term ‘floating’ has been used quite vaguely in the literature to describe various injury patterns /surgical procedures and even congenital anomalies. When the term is used to describe an injury pattern, it commonly implies that a joint/bone has lost its continuity at adjacent ends either as a result of fractures, fracture dislocations or pure disloca-tions and hence has become ‘floating’ [1]
Floating Knee is the term applied to the flail knee joint segment resulting from a fracture of the shaft or adjacent metaphysis of the ipsilateral femur and tibiaCite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name cannot be a simple integer. Use a descriptive title. The fractures range from simple diaphyseal to complex articular types. This complex injury has increased in proportion to population growth, number of motor vehicles on the road, and high speed traffic. Although the exact incidence of the floating knee is not known, it is an uncommon injury.[2]
This injury is generally caused by high-energy trauma and the trauma to the soft tissues is often extensive. There also may be life-threatening injuries to the head, chest or abdomen and a high inci-dence of fat embolism.
Epidemiology[edit | edit source]
- Most of the patients are in their third decade with a preponderance of males.
- Road traffic accident (RTA) accounts for majority of the cases and this is followed by fall from height (FFH) 1-5
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ AGARWAL A, CHADHA M. Floating injuries :a review of the literature and proposal for a universal classification. Acta Orthop. Belg. 2004, 70, 509-514
- ↑ Rethnam U, Yesupalan RS, Nair R. The floating knee: epidemiology,prognostic indicators &amp; outcome following surgical management. ournal of Trauma Management &amp; Outcomes 2007, 1:2
