Patient Weight-bearing after Pelvic Fracture Surgery—A Systematic Review of the Literature: What is the Modern Evidence Base?

BACKGROUND: Little attention in the literature appears to have been paid to the issue of postoperative weight-bearing protocols for different injury patterns after pelvic fracture surgery. The primary aim of this study is to review the currently available literature to define the level of available evidence used to inform surgical decisions on weight-bearing after pelvic fracture surgery. Secondary aims are to assess the published methods of fracture classification, surgical management, and assessment or reporting of patient outcomes. METHODS: A systematic review of the English language literature from 1990 to 2016 was undertaken. Eligible papers were all papers reporting minimum 6-month outcomes following surgery for pelvic fractures in adults. Exclusion criteria included pathological fractures or those resulting from penetrating injury, solely osteoporotic fractures, or series with less than 6 months of follow-up data. RESULTS: There is very little published scientific data to inform the treating surgeon on postoperative weight-bearing protocols after pelvic fracture surgery, with no randomized trials and only 1 paper out of 122 stating this as a primary aim. More than half of the papers published did not state what postoperative protocol was employed. There is no standardization of outcome measures, with less than 20% of papers using the most common validated outcome scoring system; in contrast, there is good agreement on the use of either the Tile (75%) or Burgess and Young (20%) classification. LIMITATIONS: Due to the lack of published studies looking at the topic of postoperative weight-bearing after pelvic fractures, no specific recommendations are possible. As large numbers of papers were included, they were not individually assessed for bias. CONCLUSION: A review of postoperative weight-bearing regimes reveals a nonexistent scientific evidence base from which to make recommendations, although a consensus strategy has been identified. Future research needs to be directed at this topic, as has already been the case in numerous other fracture areas, since the advantages of early mobility are potentially significant. The reported methodology for assessing and reporting patient outcomes after pelvic fracture surgery reveals no consistent standards, and the majority of papers use no specific outcome scoring system. HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE: Rickman M, Link B-C, Solomon LB. Patient Weight-bearing after Pelvic Fracture Surgery—A Systematic Review of the Literature: What is the Modern Evidence Base? Strategies Trauma Limb Reconstr 2019;14(1):45–52.