Opinion Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Nov 18, 2021; 12(11): 811-815
Published online Nov 18, 2021. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v12.i11.811
Revisiting Pauwels' classification of femoral neck fractures
Sumon Nandi
Sumon Nandi, Orthopaedic Surgery Department, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201, United States
Author contributions: Nandi S reviewed the existing literature, performed the data analysis, and wrote the manuscript; He has approved the final manuscript
Conflict-of-interest statement: Nandi S has no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Sumon Nandi, MD, Associate Professor, Orthopaedic Surgery Department, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 110 S. Paca Street Ste 300, Baltimore, MD 21201, United States. sumon.nandi@gmail.com
Received: June 28, 2021
Peer-review started: June 28, 2021
First decision: July 27, 2021
Revised: July 31, 2021
Accepted: September 15, 2021
Article in press: September 15, 2021
Published online: November 18, 2021
Processing time: 140 Days and 22.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Pauwels' classification of femoral neck fractures continues to guide construct selection for femoral neck fracture internal fixation and is the foundation for treating non-union with valgus osteotomy. However, with poor inter- and intra-rater reliability, dated treatment recommendations, and unreliable prognostic value, the Pauwels classification cannot be directly applied in its entirety to the management of femoral neck fractures in modern practice.