Muscle pedicle bone flap transplantation for treating femoral neck fracture in adults: a systematic review

BACKGROUND: This systematic review was conducted to gather available evidence on the effectiveness of muscle pedicle bone flap transplantation in adult patients with femoral neck fractures. METHODS: Databases such as PubMed, EMBASE, IEEE, Web of Science, and Cochrane library were searched from their dates of inception until March 2021. Two reviewers independently selected the interventional studies on the assessment of the effectiveness of muscle pedicle bone flap transplantation for femoral neck fractures; data extraction and assessment of the methodological quality as per the Institute of Health Economics quality appraisal checklist were also performed by the reviewers. The effectiveness and complication outcomes were assessed by calculating the average rates. RESULTS: Overall, 20 studies with 1022 patients were included in this review. Notably, the methodologic quality of the included studies was typically poor. The average effective rates were as follows: good, 73.4%; fair, 15.4%; and poor, 10.9%. Moreover, the average nonunion rate, average avascular necrosis rate, average collapse rate, and the overall reoperation rate were 9.0%, 6.7%, 4.7%, and 7.3%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review of heterogeneous studies with varying number of patients and varying surgical techniques indicated that muscle pedicle bone flap transplantation provides promising results with low rates of avascular necrosis and nonunion. Nevertheless, further controlled studies are required to ascertain the effectiveness of muscle pedicle bone flap transplantation in treating femoral neck fracture.