Surgical technique for minimally invasive fibula fracture fixation

This paper describes a minimally invasive percutaneous technique for reduction and fixation of distal fibula fractures using plate osteosynthesis. We believe this technique benefits patients with poor quality soft tissue envelopes. So far a total of 25 patients have undergone percutaneous fixation, 22 females and 3 males. At no stage yet has a minimally invasive procedure been abandoned intra-operatively in favour of conversion to an open procedure. The mean age was 61.6 years (range 25–80 years). The mean time to surgery was 2.00 days (range 0–5) and mean time to discharge was 4.20 days (range 1–9). At a minimum of over 1 year's follow-up all fractures have healed, with no delayed unions or complications so far experienced.