Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Jul 18, 2018; 9(7): 92-99
Published online Jul 18, 2018. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v9.i7.92
Systematic review of dynamization vs exchange nailing for delayed/non-union femoral fractures
Jacob E Vaughn, Ronit V Shah, Tarek Samman, Jacob Stirton, Jiayong Liu, Nabil A Ebraheim
Jacob E Vaughn, Ronit V Shah, Tarek Samman, College of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43614, United States
Jacob Stirton, Jiayong Liu, Nabil A Ebraheim, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, University of Toledo Medical Center, Toledo, OH 43614, United States
Author contributions: Vaughn JE, Shah RV and Samman T performed the research and analyzed the data and wrote the paper; Stirton J, Liu J and Ebraheim NA provided structure for the article as well as edited and revised the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors report no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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/
Correspondence to: Jiayong Liu, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, University of Toledo Medical Center, 3065 Arlington Avenue, Toledo, OH 43614, United States. jiayong.liu@utoledo.edu
Telephone: +1-800-5865336 Fax: +1-419-3835362
Received: February 3, 2018
Peer-review started: February 6, 2018
First decision: March 2, 2018
Revised: April 24, 2018
Accepted: May 30, 2018
Article in press: May 30, 2018
Published online: July 18, 2018
Processing time: 162 Days and 11 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Information from previously published articles investigating patients treated for delayed union and non-union femur fractures by either dynamization or exchange nailing was combined and analyzed to better understand which technique was more efficient at achieving osseous union. When treating femoral non-unions, exchange nailing was shown to achieve osseous union in a higher percentage of patients than dynamization with comparable recovery times. However, dynamization appears to be equally as effective as exchange nailing in the treatment of delayed unions.