Recovery Position vs Prone Position in the Surgical Treatment of Trimalleolar Ankle Fractures Using Posterolateral and Medial Approach

CATEGORY: Trauma INTRODUCTION/PURPOSE: Posterolateral (PL) and medial approaches have been increasingly used for open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) of trimalleolar ankle fractures. Traditionally this procedure is performed on the prone position. Nevertheless, this position itself has been related to general complications as brachial plexus injury and postoperative visual loss. Moreover, the prone position can provide difficult access for medial malleolar reduction. Recovery position was recently described as an alternative but its results have not been evaluated yet. This study aimed to compare the results using recovery position (RP) versus prone position in the surgical treatment of trimalleolar fractures. METHODS: A retrospective analytic study was conducted in a Level 1 trauma center, analyzing patients who underwent ORIF for trimalleolar ankle fractures using posterolateral and medial approaches over 3 years. 58 ankles were divided according to the position used in the surgical fixation: Group 1 positioned in RP (27 ankles), and group 2 positioned in prone (31 ankles). Demographics, surgical time, hospital stay, quality of reduction, surgical site complications and re- interventions were compared between both groups. Statistical analysis was performed with Shapiro-Wilks test to assess normality in distribution, Chi-square test, and t-student test for group differences in parametric variables as Fisher's exact test and Mann-Whitney U test in non- parametric variables with a p-value set at 0.05. RESULTS: Median age was 47 years old (IQR 40-58). Both groups were similar regarding age (p=0.794), gender (p=0.902), and posterior malleolus Haraguchi (p=0.064) and Bartonicek-Rammelt (p=0.055) classifications. Surgical median time was 115 (IQR 100-130) and 100 (IQR 75-129) minutes for RP and prone groups respectively (p=0,085), Both groups showed similar rates of lateral, posterior and medial malleolus insufficient reduction (Table attached). Median hospital stay was 4 (IQR 2-9 and 2-7 for RP and prone respectively) days for both (p=0,86) (Table attached). Surgical site complications and re-interventions were similar between both groups (p=0.349 and p=1.0 respectively). CONCLUSION: The RP showed similar results than the prone position while providing an accessible simultaneous approach to the posterolateral and medial regions of the ankle.