Fracture of the astragalus in pediatric patients, an unusual entity

Autor: Isaac Baley Amiga, Mauricio Montalvo, Lourdes Noemi-Santos Aragon, Salomon Jasqui Remba, Daniel Portman Santos
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: International Journal of Surgery Case Reports
ISSN: 2210-2612
Popis: Highlights • The poor blood supply of the astragalus increases the risk of avascular necrosis. • The astragalus is composed mainly of cartilage, which reduces the risk of fracture. • It is important to keep this fracture in mind in injuries that could compromise the astragalus. • The physician needs to know the differential diagnoses to get the right diagnosis nd to administer the correct treatment.
Introduction and importance The fracture of the astragalus is an unusual bone fracture (Ladero and Concejero, 2004) and is even more unusual in pediatric patients. The astragalus is a bone surrounded by cartilage and other structures making it difficult to appreciate on an X-ray which can lead to misdiagnosis (Ladero and Concejero, 2004; Inal and Inal, 2014) and could lead to not applying the right treatment and risk avascular necrosis or other sequelae. Case presentation 3-year-old male with foot pain and edema+++, unable to walk or stand up since a fall 2 days before, had a doubtful diagnosis after an x-ray showed no apparent bone injury. A CT scan confirmed astragulus fracture; it was then treated adequately, thus avoiding complications that could have occurred had the fracture not been diagnosed and treated correctly. Clinical findings and interventions and outcome The limb was immobilized with a suropodalic cast for 5 weeks. No surgery was performed because of the patient's age and because the fracture was not displaced (Hawkins type 1) (Jasqui-Remba and Rodriguez-Corlay, 2016; Urrutia et al., 1999). Relevance and impact There is a risk of misdiagnosis in these cases since the astragulus fracture might not show up in an X-ray, as in the case presented. A CT scan can detect the fracture and thus help consolidate the bone correctly. The correct differential diagnosis also reduces the risk of avascular necrosis, which increases due to poor blood supply to the astragalus.
Databáze: OpenAIRE