Diabetic Ankle Fracture Complications: A Meta-Analysis

CATEGORY: Ankle, Diabetes, Trauma INTRODUCTION/PURPOSE: Fractures in diabetic patients have a well-known increased risk of complications and this makes the decision to treat these fractures either surgically or conservatively a difficult choice. However, ankle fractures are mostly treated surgically because of their pattern and the postoperative management does not differ from those ankle fractures in non-diabetic patients. The following study aims to review the evident rate of complications following the treatment of an ankle fracture in diabetic patients and their matched controls. METHODS: Searches of PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane and ISI Web of Knowledge were performed for studies published between the date of database inception and March 2018. An initial selection of 202 abstracts was performed by at least 2 different reviewers, of which 77 articles were selected to complete review. After following strict inclusion and exclusion criteria, only 17 papers were admitted to the final meta-analysis. Demographics patient characteristics and incidence of the overall and specific complications were extracted from each study selected and an odds ratio with a 95% confidence interval of each complication was calculated between the diabetic and non- diabetic groups. Major complications (infection, non-union, malunion, Charcot neuroarthropathy, amputation, death) were compared not only between the two main groups but also between subgroups (complicated diabetic and non-complicated diabetic patients, surgical and orthopaedic treatment). The statistics data was analysed by Stata 15. RESULTS: There is a significant increased rate of complications after treating an ankle fracture orthopaedically or surgically in diabetic patients (OR 1.74, IC 95% 1.67 to 1.82). This risk is considerably higher when the ankle fracture is treated surgically (OR 5.14, IC 95% 2.79 -9.58). Among the complications in diabetic patients, the rate is greater in complicated diabetic patients (neuropathy, vasculopathy) compared to the non-complicated diabetic patients (OR 8, IC 95% 2.61 - 26.31). The main complication postoperative in ankle fracture described is infection, which is 7 times higher in diabetic patients in comparison to non-diabetic patients (OR 6.9, IC 95% 3.03 -15.73). The risk of amputation and/or non-union after an ankle fracture in diabetic patients is about 0.2%. CONCLUSION: This meta-analysis provides evidence that diabetic patients have a significant greater risk of presenting a complication after an ankle fracture. The rate of major complications (infection, malunion, non-union, amputation and death) is by far significantly higher among those diabetic patients treated surgically and even greater among complicated diabetic patients.