Outcome of pelvic ring injuries

Outcome evaluation is of major importance to provide data to analyze the value of the chosen treatment concept. Despite an increasing effort of analyzing outcome after treatment of different pelvic ring injuries, a mixture of different outcome parameters is in use. The Majeed score is most frequently used for mid- to long-term evaluation and the quality of life is analyzed using the SF-36 score. The lack in nearly all studies is that different treatment concepts are used, and only selected evaluation parameters are reported. Until today, no well-accepted standardized measurement instruments are available to analyze the clinical and radiological results after pelvic ring injuries. Overall, stability-based long-term sequelae can be expected with increasing complaints from stable type A injuries to completely unstable type C injuries. Beside a fracture-type specific treatment, concomitant injuries of other injury regions and associated local pelvic injuries (complex pelvic trauma) seem to additionally influence the results. Results of treatment of specific fracture types are sparse as a wide range of different injury types and different treatment concepts are analyzed within these analyses. A sufficient pelvic outcome instrument which addresses relevant pelvic outcome parameters is still missing. Thus, future evaluation of long-term results after pelvic ring. injuries should include prospective, multicenter outcome studies with comparable parameters.