[Pohl's track screw for the surgical treatment of femoral neck fracture. Reliable surgical principle or obsolete method?].

Pohl's hip screw--the classic form of a dynamic osteosynthesis--is an approved method in the treatment of the fracture of the femoral neck (lateral and pertrochanteric fractures). Between 1963 and 1983 over 200 patients were treated with Pohl's hip screw. At an averaged stay of 29 days in hospital half of them were rehabilitated. The mortality rate was 9.3%. More recent methods--e.g. the dynamic hip screw, propagated by AO--present more technical improvements but they are only variations of an old therapeutic principle proved over a generation.