Non-prosthetic implant-related femur fractures in post-polio patients

Abstract

The overall societal impact of poliomyelitis worldwide is decreasing, rendering it almost absent in most developed countries. However, even there, patients are still seen who contracted it in endemic areas or developed polio before vaccinations became widely available. Post-polio syndrome (PPS) causes skeletal and neurological changes that increase affected individuals' likelihood of fractures, including fractures requiring complex surgical treatment. The existence of previous internal fixation creates a particularly difficult challenge. We present here the surgical management of four post-polio patients who suffered non-prosthetic implant-related femoral fractures. Injuries occurred at earlier ages than implant-related fractures in non-polio patients and three of the four fractures occurred around plates, a phenomenon which is usually rare. The treatment of implant-related fractures in patients with post-polio syndrome poses significant technical challenges, often creating problematic functional sequelae for patients and high costs for healthcare systems.