Evaluation of Patient-Reported and Clinician-Reported Outcomes of Volar Locking Plate Fixation for Distal Radius Fractures

• Published in: The Journal of Hand Surgery Asian-Pacific Volume Vol. 25; no. 3; pp. 359 - 363
• Main Authors: Nagura, Nana, Naito, Kiyohito, Sugiyama, Yoichi, Obata, Hiroyuki, Goto, Kenji, Kaneko, Ayaka, Kawakita, So, Kaneko, Kazuo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Singapore World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte., Ltd 01.09.2020
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Bone Plates; Disability Evaluation; Female; Fracture Fixation, Internal; Fractures; Hand Strength; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Patient Reported Outcome Measures; Patients; Radius Fractures - surgery; Range of motion; Range of Motion, Articular; Surgery; Trauma; Visual Analog Scale; Wrist; Young Adult; Distal radius fractures; Volar locking plate; Patient-reported outcomes; Clinician-reported outcomes
• DOI: 10.1142/S2424835520500411
• ISSN: 2424-8355

Postoperative evaluation of wrist joint trauma is divided into patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and clinician-reported outcomes (CROs). We investigated the association of the Q-DASH score as the postoperative PROs and the Mayo wrist score as the postoperative CROs with clinical evaluation in patients with distal radius fractures surgically treated using a volar locking plate (VLP). Moreover, whether PROs and CROs are correlated to the clinical evaluation was investigated. The subjects were 109 patients surgically treated for distal radius fractures at our hospital between June 2013 and May 2017. Forty-one patients were male, 68 patients were female, and the mean age was 61.4 (19-86) years old. The fracture type was AO classification A type in 30 patients (A2: 25, A3: 5), B type in 5 (B2: 1, B3: 4), and C type in 74 (C1: 50, C2: 11, C3: 13). All patients were surgically treated using VLP. The range of motion of the wrist, grip strength the Visual Analog Scale (VAS), the Q-DASH score (PROs), and the Mayo wrist score (CROs) were investigated. Each evaluation was compared as the clinical outcome between at 3 months after surgery and the final follow-up. In addition, the correlations of the postoperative PROs and CROs with the clinical evaluation were analyzed. Each evaluation was significantly improved compared with that at 3 months after surgery. There was a significant correlation between PROs and CROs at 3 months after surgery and the final follow-up. However, the range of motion of the wrists was not significantly correlated with PROs or CROs at 3 months after surgery or at the final follow-up. On evaluation after surgery for distal radius fractures, PROs and CROs improved early after surgery (3 months after surgery) before the final follow-up, and an inverse correlation was present between these scores.