The mechanical stability of extra-articular distal radius fractures with respect to the number of screws securing the distal fragment.

Purpose: The treatment of distal radius fractures with volar locked plating (VLP) has gained popularity. Many different designs and sizes of plates afford a wide variety of configurations of locking screws that can be placed into the distal fracture fragment. The purpose of this study was to determine whether using half of the distal locking screws decreased stability when compared with using all possible distal locking screws with 4 different VLP systems.