Abstract

Background: Floating knee injuries are frequently part of polytrauma. The outcome of this injury
pattern when compared to only femur or tibia fracture is less satisfactory. The outcome is even worse
when there is presence of other associated injuries. We hypothesized that not all associated injuries
have similar bearing on the outcome thus tried to find out the impact of commonly associated injuries
on the final outcome of these complex fractures.
Methods: Study was conducted including the patients of floating knee injury operated between
September 2016 and January 2019. Total of 42 eligible patients were operated, 4 patients were
excluded to due to lack of adequate follow-up. Data relating to demography, Fraser subtype,
compounding, associated injuries and clinical outcome were collected. Statistical analysis was
performed to see the association of associated injury, Fraser subtype and presence of compounding
with clinical outcome.
Results: Mean age was 33.5 years (17-63 years) with a male preponderance. Mean follow up was 1.6
years. Twenty-seven patients (71.1%) had excellent/good outcome while outcome of 11 patients
(28.9%) was acceptable/poor. Seventeen patients (44.7%) had compound fractures. Injuries which were
significantly associated with Acceptable/Poor outcome were ligament injuries, popliteal artery injury,
abdominal injury and patella fracture. Chest injury with a p value of 0.05 was also very close to being
statistically significant.
Conclusion: The clinical outcome of these patients not only depend on proactive and optimum
management of tibial and femoral fractures but also on the management of associated injuries.