Introduction:

Femoral shaft fractures require great energy and are often associated with other injuries. This is the case of knee ligament injuries, which can go unnoticed by the treating physician The objective of our work is to review the existing literature on this injury association. Within it, the diagnostic methodology used and the incidence of ligamentous injuries will be sought.

Materials and methods:

A bibliographic search was carried out in a systematic way through the search portals PubMed and Timbó. The search reached a total of 3099 articles and according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 15 works were selected.

Results:

The different articles used physical examination under anesthesia, stress radiographs, arthroscopy or magnetic resonance imaging to establish the diagnosis of ligamentous injuries associated with femoral diaphysis fractures. 22.5% of femoral fractures were associated with knee ligament injury, with anterior cruciate ligament accounting for 34% of reported injuries.

Discussion:

There is evidence of a great variability in the incidence of ligament injuries and which is the most frequently injured ligament, ranging from 5.3% to 52.5% in both retrospective and prospective studies with low numbers of patients. A diagnostic algorithm is proposed for patients who may present this lesional association, to prevent them from going unnoticed by the treating medical team. Achieving an early diagnosis can improve the prognosis of these patients.

Conclusion:

Our review shows that in the context of a femoral diaphysis fracture, 22.5% of patients present knee ligament injuries with 34% of ACL involvement. However, these figures are highly variable in the different studies. For this reason, we believe it is necessary to carry out a prospective study with a larger number of patients in order to assess the true epidemiology of these lesions.

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