Recent Advances for the Management of Foot and Ankle Trauma in Europe and the USA

Introduction: Foot and ankle trauma are some of the most common injuries managed by orthopedic surgeons.Surgical fixation is wellestablished as the treatment of choice for managing these injuries.It allows for an anatomic reduction, it decreases instability, it permits early mobility of the extremity, and it lessens the development of post-traumatic arthrosis.Over the last few years newer techniques and implants have been developed to avoid creating these large surgical incisions and extensive surgical dissections.Methodology: This review paper will discuss newer treatment options available for the surgical management of acute foot and ankle trauma.Methods used to gather these newer techniques have been obtained through a PUBMED literature search performed over the last 8 years and are formatted to provide information regarding recent advances for the management of these injuries and discuss outcomes, when available, regarding the use of these newer approaches and implants.Results: This review paper has divided the manuscript into two sections consisting of the newer approaches for the management of injuries to the foot, consisting of care for Lisfranc injuries and talus and calcaneal fractures.The second half of the manuscript discusses the management of ankle fractures including an evaluation of stress tests, arthroscopy aided fixation, the use of fibular nails, and the newer advances available for the management of posterior malleolus and pilon fractures.Conclusions: Traditional teaching has relied on the use of open reduction internal fixation (ORIF) for the management of these injuries.However, these may require large incisions and extensive dissections to obtain adequate reductions.Over the last few years newer techniques and implants have been developed to avoid creating these large incisions and extensive surgical dissections.The new approaches and outcomes discussed in this review paper will hopefully provide surgeons managing these injuries with different options to consider for the management of foot and ankle injuries.Taking small steps to apply new methods of evaluations and fixation may allow those surgeons, who are hesitant, to feel more comfortable when attempting some of these newer approaches.