Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Pediatr. Nov 9, 2021; 10(6): 151-158
Published online Nov 9, 2021. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v10.i6.151
Pediatric firearm-associated fractures: Analysis of management and outcomes
Virginia Lieu, Laura A Carrillo, Nirav K Pandya, Ishaan Swarup
Virginia Lieu, Department of Orthopaedics, St. Mary’s Medical Center, San Francisco, CA 94117, United States
Laura A Carrillo, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53226, United States
Nirav K Pandya, Ishaan Swarup, Department of Orthopaedics, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, Oakland, CA 94609, United States
Author contributions: Swarup I designed the research and supervised and contributed to the report; Pandya NK supervised and contributed to the report; Lieu V and Carrillo LA collected and analyzed the data and wrote the paper.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland.
Informed consent statement: The informed consent statement was waived by the Institutional Review Board.
Conflict-of-interest statement: We have no financial relationships to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
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: Ishaan Swarup, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Orthopaedics, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, 744 52nd Street, Oakland, CA 94609, United States. ishaan.swarup@ucsf.edu
Received: January 7, 2021
Peer-review started: January 7, 2021
First decision: May 6, 2021
Revised: June 7, 2021
Accepted: September 22, 2021
Article in press: September 22, 2021
Published online: November 9, 2021
Processing time: 305 Days and 14.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Over 25% of firearm-associated injuries (FAIs) in pediatric patients result in firearm-associated fractures (FAFs). FAFs often present to pediatric trauma centers and the majority of these injuries occur in non-Caucasian males with government insurance. Most FAFs do not need orthopaedic surgical management; 14% of these injuries require subspecialty care by orthopaedic, vascular, or plastic surgery. Patients with FAFs have a lower injury severity score compared to patients who sustained FAIs without fracture. These patients should be treated at pediatric trauma centers with specialty care. Additional research is needed to focus prevention efforts, understand reasons for poor follow-up, and evaluate outcomes after injury.