Fracture treatment. The still unsolved problem.

The problem of the best method for fracture treatment is unsolved and awaits in genuity and intensive research. It is not known whether it is better to treat a fracture by rigid immobilization or by cyclical loading systems. Reports on the treatment of healing bones by the various contemporary methods are contradictory and inconclusive owing to the inherent lack of control in clinical studies. Selected experimental studies on the various biomechanical factors in fracture healing suggest that mechanical variables definitely alter qualitatively the healing of fractured bone. Although no studies have been specifically designed to show which mechanical factors resulted in the most efficient fracture healing, investigations suggest that healing under conditions of rigid fixation results in qualitative structural differences which constitute a weaker bone.