Do Computerized Tomography Scans Change Management in Carpometacarpal Dislocations and Fracture-Dislocations?

Background: Concomitant carpal injuries with dislocations and fracture-dislocations of the carpometacarpal joints (CMCD/FD) are often hard to see on plain radiographs, making advanced imaging a useful diagnostic adjunct. We aim to: (1) characterize bony injury patterns with CMCD/FD; and (2) determine the frequency that preoperative computed tomography (CT) scans change surgical management.

Methods: A retrospective review was performed of patients who underwent operative fixation of CMCD/FD from 2006 to 2021. X-ray and CT scan diagnoses were reviewed and correlated to intraoperative findings and procedures performed. Statistical analyses were performed to evaluate the frequency in which CT scans changed management and the frequency of new intraoperative diagnoses.

Results: Seventy-five patients were identified. All patients had a preoperative x-ray, and 27 patients (36%) additionally had a CT scan. Patients who sustained high-velocity trauma were significantly more likely to obtain a CT scan than patients with low-velocity trauma (P = .019); however, the number of additional diagnoses was not significantly associated with trauma velocity (P = .35). Computed tomography scans significantly increased the number of diagnoses (P < .001) and changed operative management in 58% of cases. Six of the 48 patients (12.5%) that did not receive a CT scan had new intraoperative diagnoses, which changed the procedure for five of these patients. New intraoperative diagnoses were identified significantly more when patients did not have a CT scan (P = .04).

Conclusions: Obtaining a CT scan in CMCD/FD patients changed the patient's diagnosis at a significant rate and changed operative management roughly half of the time. The authors recommend routine CT scans be obtained in patients with CMCD/FD.