Influence of direct radiography in decision making during orthopaedic trauma surgery: A prospective study

To evaluate the effects of intraoperative direct radiography on the change in the patient's treatment and the reliability of fluoroscopy in orthopaedic trauma surgery operations. A total of 773 fractures were evaluated prospectively. The surgeons involved in the case were divided into three groups according to their experiences: less than 5 years, 5–10 years and over 10 years. After each case, the fracture classification, whether any interventions were made after the X-ray, and the interventions were recorded. There were 312(40%) intra-articular, 200(26%) metaphyseal, 161(21%) diaphyseal, 81(10%) pelvis-acetabulum, and 19(3%) vertebrae fractures. Surgeons needed to intervene in 71(9.2%) cases after direct-radiography. There was a significant difference between the location of the fracture and the number of interventions (p