Need for syndesmotic fixation and assessment of reduction during ankle fracture fixation, with and without contralateral fluoroscopic images, has poor interobserver reliability

Purpose To determine the interobserver reliability of syndesmosis assessment using intraoperative ankle mortise fluoroscopic images, with and without contralateral images. Methods A survey of 19 operative ankle fracture cases was administered to 17 orthopedic surgeons. Respondents were presented with fluoroscopic mortise and stress images of the ankle after fracture fixation and asked if they would fix the syndesmosis. Final fluoroscopic mortise images were then shown, and respondents were asked to assess the reduction of the syndesmosis. Six weeks later, the survey was administered again with the addition of contralateral fluoroscopic ankle mortise images. Responses were compared to a standard response agreed upon by fellowship-trained orthopedic trauma surgeons. Results Interobserver reliability for syndesmosis fixation and reduction, with and without contralateral images, was considered weak (kappa 0.48 and 0.43; mean difference 0.05, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.01 to 0.1) and minimal (kappa 0.25 and 0.22; mean difference 0.02, CI − 0.02 to 0.08). With the addition of contralateral mortise images, the number of surgeons who changed their response for syndesmosis fixation and reduction quality ranged from 0% to 41% and 0% to 88%; with the number of responses matching the standard increasing for both fixation (proportional difference (PD) 7%, CI 1% to 14%) and reduction (PD 14%, CI 7% to 21%); Conclusions Interobserver reliability of syndesmosis fixation and reduction remained weak to minimal between surgeons, with and without contralateral images. Future studies are necessary to understand the variability in surgeon responses in order to improve the intraoperative assessment and fixation of syndesmotic injuries.