• Wei-Jian Qiu, Yu Zhan, Hui Sun, Ya-Feng Xu, Yu-Kai Wang, and CongFeng Luo.
• Orthopaedic Trauma Service III, Dept. of Orthop. Surg., Shanghai Jiaotong University affiliated Shanghai 6th People's Hospital, 600 YiShan Road, Shanghai 200233, PR China.
• Injury. 2015 Aug 1; 46 (8): 1613-8.

PurposeThis study was aiming to investigate intraoperative and postoperative complications and outcomes of a posterior reversed L-shaped approach (PRLA) in the treatment of the tibial plateau fractures.MethodsInclusion criterion was tibial plateau fractures treated through the PRLA either separated or combined with other approaches. Main exclusion criterion was poly-trauma patients. Ninety-five patients with tibial plateau fractures from a prospectively collected database were included and followed in this study. The intraoperative and postoperative complications consisted of vascular and nerve injury, wound infection, dehiscence, haematoma, nonunion, skin necrosis and skin paresthesia. Hospital for Special Surgery Knee Score (HSS) was adopted to evaluate patients' knee function while Short Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36) was used to investigate the patients' general health status.ResultsPatients' average age was 46.2 years old (range, 22.0-89.0). The fractures were mainly from high energy injuries involving posterior (and medial) column. 78 of 95 cases were combined with an additional anterolateral approach due to the lateral column involvement. The average follow-up was 52.0 months (range, 12.4-102.6). The total complications rate was 4.2% (4/95). Intraoperative complications occurred in two patients (2.1%). One suffered a popliteal artery injury resulted from an antero-posteriorly drilled K-wire. The patient had a loss of 7° knee extension at one year's follow-up. The other endured an injury of nutrient vessel within the medial head of gastrocnemius. Postoperative skin paresthesia occurred in two patients (2.1%). The other complications associated with the PRLA were not observed. The mean HSS score was 96.1 (range, 80-100). The mean SF-36 score was 94.2 (range, 80-100).ConclusionsThe posterior reversed L-shaped approach allows satisfied visualization of the medial and posterior tibial plateau and has promising clinical results with low complication occurrence. It can be recommended as a routine approach for the treatment of the tibial plateau fractures involving the posterior column.Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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