Does coating an intramedullary nail with polymethylmethacrylate improve mechanical stability at the fracture site?

摘要

Background: Treatment of tibia diaphyseal fractures with intramedullary nail fixation has proven to be effective. An increasingly popular practice is to coat the nail with bone cement incorporating antibiotics for the purpose of treating and/or preventing infection. To date, the effect of coating on the mechanical performance of the intramedullary nail once implanted is unknown. We hypothesize that cement coating does not change the crosssectional stiffness of the nail, so that, when fixing tibia diaphyseal fracture with gapping, cement coated intramedullary nail provide stiffness comparable to that of standard conventional uncoated ones.