Saket Jati1, Dev Padia2
BACKGROUND
There are always difference of opinion in the importance of Bohler’s angle in evaluating the severity of displaced intra-articular calcaneal fractures and predicting the functional outcome following surgical fixation. The purpose of this research, the relationship exists between Bohler’s angle and the injury severity of displaced calcaneal fractures and between surgical improvement of Bohler’s angle and its practical outcome.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Patients were treated surgically for unilateral closed displaced intra-articular calcaneal fractures from May 2014 to October 2016 were identified. The Bohler’s angles of bilateral calcaneus were measured and was compared to the dimension of the uninjured foot was used as its normal control. The difference in the value of Bohler’s angle measured preoperatively or after surgery between the angle of the damaged foot and that of the contralateral calcaneus was calculated, respectively. The change in Bohler’s angle by ratio was calculated by dividing the variation in the value of Bohler’s angle between bilateral calcaneus by its typical control. The injury severity was assessed according to Sanders classification. The functional outcomes were assessed using American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society hindfoot scores.
RESULTS
30 patients were included into the study with a mean follow-up duration of 30 months. According to Sanders classification, the fracture pattern included 12 type II, 10 type III and 8 type IV fractures. According to American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society hindfoot scoring system, the excellent, good, fair and poor results were achieved in 10, 8, 4 and 2 patients, respectively. The preoperative Bohler’s angle, difference value of Bohler’s angle between bilateral calcaneus and change in Bohler’s angle by ratio each has a significant relationship with Sanders classification (P=0.003; P=0.004; P=0.005, respectively), however, is not correlated with functional outcome individually. However, these relationships were all weak to low.
CONCLUSION
A strong connection between preoperative Bohler’s angle and the injury severity of displaced intra-articular calcaneal fractures, but only postoperative Bohler’s angle factors were major relationship with the functional recovery.
