Background:

Pediatric open fractures account for more tan 10% of hospital admissions in a Pediatric Trauma Clinical Department. It is important to identify the predominant surgical management prescription pattern in pediatric patients presenting with Type I open forearm fractures at a referral center in an emerging economy.

Material and methods:

Observational, cross-sectional, analytical, secondary-source (logs) sampling study of consecutive cases. The cases included subjects under 17 years of age presenting with Type I open forearm fractures at a Pediatric Trauma Clinical Department from January 1st, 2009 to December 31st, 2013.

Results:

Ninety-two patients with a diagnosis of Type I open forearm fracture were included. All patients received parenteral antibiotics and underwent surgical debridement. However, in 69 (75%) of them a cast was used; in 9 (10%) a splint was used; 9 (10%) underwent fixation with Kirschner nails, and 5 (5.4%) underwent open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF). Eight patients (9%) required reoperation.

Conclusions:

Surgical management is the predominant prescription pattern in pediatric patients with Type I open forearm fracture. The latter is the predominant eepidemiology. The type of management was associated with a second surgery (p < 0.000); however, this did not have a statistically significant impact on the hospital stay (p = 0.09).