Minimum ten-year follow-up of acetabular fracture fixation from the Irish tertiary referral centre.

Background: Successful outcome from acetabular fracture fixation is multi-factorial. Long-term results are not frequently reported. Pooling such data from high output centres will help progress acetabular fixation. This paper presents the first ten-year data from the Irish tertiary referral centre.

Aim: To audit the radiographic and clinical outcome of all patients who had acetabular fracture fixation in the unit a minimum of ten years previously.

Methods: Patients were identified from the unit database. Each patient was contacted and invited to attend the hospital for clinical and radiographic review. Clinical review consisted of examination and three separate scoring systems using both subjective and objective parameters. Radiographic review consisted of a standard AP pelvis and Judet views.

Results: Forty-four patients were identified. Follow up of 68% was achieved. Total hip arthroplasty rate was 13.8%. Twenty percent of the remaining native hips had radiographic evidence of established arthritis. Sixty-three percent of functional outcome scores were classified as 'good' or 'excellent'. Radiographic and functional data did not strongly correlate. The strongest correlating factor with poor functional outcome was concurrent injuries, particularly sciatic nerve injury.

Conclusions: These data support the role of operative intervention for acetabular fractures in a tertiary referral centre and allow better counselling of patients on prognosis.