Instrument fails, but surgeon should not. Surgical techniques for retrieval of broken intramedullary reamer from tibia

摘要

Intramedullary interlocking nail has become standard mode of treatment for fracture of long bones of leg. Where instrumentations, like flexible reamers, are restraint, it can be sufficed with serial reaming with straight reamer. However, straight reamer makes the surgery difficult at times, because it has a tendency to break. We encountered a similar situation and would like to share how we retrieved the broken piece of straight reamer from the medullary canal.