Injuries to the knee ligaments with fractures of the femur.

Evaluation of twenty-four consecutive patients with fracture of the femoral shaft showed injuries of the ligaments of the ipsilateral knee in eight (33 per cent) of them. The history was always one of violent injury, but the examiner had to suspect that this combination of injuries had occurred simultaneously before a careful local physical examination elicited diagnostic signs. Then, pin stabilization of the distal part of the femur with stress radiographs of the knee yielded an early diagnosis. Late recognition of the combined injuries usually could be documented by radiographs of the femur and the knee in traction.