Surgical management of acetabular fractures associated with pelvic ring disruption, the time-dependent effect of delay

Background: Associated fractures of the acetabulum and pelvic ring represent considerable percentage of polytrauma victims. These types of injuries are different from isolated acetabular or pelvic injuries regarding injury severity scores, haemodynamic status, blood transfusion requirements, and higher mortality rates up to 13%. Both Letournel and Matta have definitively shown that anatomic reduction of the fracture is the most influential factor predictive of clinical outcome. The ability of obtaining anatomical reduction is affected by age, fracture pattern, associated injuries, patient general condition, timing to surgery and complications. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Methods: It is a retrospective study among 24 patients performed in Zagazig university hospitals between May 2017 and February 2019. Matta scoring system was used to quantify the radiological outcome of both acetabular and pelvic components while, both Majeed and Merle d’Aubigné were used for clinical grading at the final follow up. Timing to surgery was found to affect the quality of reduction significantly. Results: We divided our cases into 2 groups; First group including the patients underwent operative management from day 0 to day 10 which include 18 cases and Second group including the patients underwent operative management from day 11 to day 21 which include 6 cases and we will observe if there is a correlation between the preoperative delay and Matta scoring for both acetabular and pelvic components. Among the operatively managed acetabular fracture There was significant association between preoperative delay and Matta scoring system for acetabular component ( P <0.05) Among the operatively managed pelvic ring injuries There was significant association between preoperative delay and Matta scoring system for pelvic component ( P <0.05). Conclusion: The quality of reduction can be controlled by controlling the time to surgery after optimization of the general condition of the patient and controlling the local complications. In our study the earlier to operate on both components within the first 10 days after initial trauma the better to get anatomical reduction.