Damage Control Orthopedics. What is the current situation?

Damage Control Orthopedics is a strategy for treatment of fractures in severely injured patients. The aim is to reduce secondary damage and thereby improve the patient's outcome. The relevant fractures are primarily stabilized with external fixators instead of a primary definitive osteosynthesis. The less traumatic and shorter surgical procedure is thought to reduce the additional trauma load and should thereby minimize the "second hit" situation. After stabilization of the patient on the intensive care unit secondary definitive ostesynthesis can then be performed after 4-14 days. The available animal studies, retrospective clinical studies and prospective cohort studies seem to support the concept of damage control. The only available randomized study shows an advantage of this strategy in a subgroup of borderline patients. A meta-analysis could not find convincing evidence that definitively proves the advantage of this concept. A new multi-center randomized study has been started to evaluate the concept of damage control in a defined group of critically injured patients with femoral shaft fractures.