Experience in a military trauma surgery department with external skeletal fixation of femur fractures.

Our experience with external skeletal fixation of complex open and closed femoral fractures in 50 conventional trauma victims is presented. Different external fixator systems were primarily used in 26 patients and secondarily in 24 patients. The authors feel that early definitive femoral fracture care in civilian and military trauma victims employing unilateral external monofixation, which avoids casts, and allows improved wound management and early mobilization of the multitrauma patient, has decreased the complication rate commonly associated with internal fixation of open femoral fractures.