Humeral Shaft Fractures in Children Incidence, Management and Treatment Effects.

BACKGROUND: Humeral shaft fractures are relatively rare in children, with incidence between 0.4% and 3% of all fractures in children and between 10% and 20% of all humeral fractures. The purpose of our study was to retrospectively evaluate all humeral shaft fractures treated at children's trauma center from january 2012 till december 2021.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: We retrospectively evaluated the group of 104 skeletally immature patients with humeral shaft fracture treated in our hospital. We have analyzed: age; sex; fracture type, management; time of bone healing; final effect and complications.

RESULTS: The non-surgical group consisted of 73 patients (27 girls and 46 boys) with an average age of 8.03 (0.6 - 17.7), while the surgical group consisted of 31 patients (16 girls and 15 boys) with an average age of 12.47 (5,7- 17.8). The mean follow-up was 7.65 months (4-12) in non-surgical group, and 13.38 months (4-24) in surgical group. We have analyzed the results statistically, confirming increase the frequency of the above-mentioned fractures and increase the number of patients treated with surgery. We achieved good effect in all patients.

CONCLUSIONS: 1. Humeral shaft fractures in children are relatively rare. Although in recent years, we have observed an increase of their frequency; 2. The vast majority of humeral shaft fractures are treated non-surgically with good clinical results; 3. Increase of number of patients treated surgically has been noticeable in the last decade; 4. Surgery is associated with a relatively low risk of complications and allows for cast withdrawal, which significantly improves the patients comfort.