Neither Operative Nor Non-operative Approach is Superior Treating Displaced Midshaft Clavicle Fractures: a Randomised Clinical Trial

Conservative treatment has been the preferred treatment for midshaft clavicle fractures, whether the fracture is displaced or undisplaced. The background for this comes from two large studies done in the 60s. C. Neer (2235 patients) and C. R Rowe (566 patients) showed respectively in 1960 and 1968 that patients with a clavicle fracture, even with larger fracture displacements, had few symptoms when the fracture is healed and that the incidence of non-union is below 1%. Both studies have been criticized for including children and adolescents where the healing potential is significantly larger than in adults and that their results are based purely on surgical and radiologic endpoints and no patient-reported outcome measurements were used.

Clavicle fractures are frequent and represent somewhere between 5 and 10% of all fractures seen in orthopedics. The incidence of clavicle fracture is somewhere between 29 and 64 per 100000 per year. Fracture of the clavicle most frequently occurs in young men and the male-to-female distribution is 2.6:1. Between 70 and 80% of all clavicle fractures are localized to the middle part of the clavicle and of these, most fractures are displaced. Midshaft clavicle fracture is defined as a fracture in the middle 3/5 parts of the clavicle (lateral boundary is a vertical line from the base of processus coracoideus and medial border is a vertical line from the middle of the first rib).

Recent studies have shown higher incidences of non-union, especially when the fracture is displaced and a shortening of two cm or more occurs. Malunion, that was previously not considered clinically important, appears in several resent studies to be associated with profound symptomatic shoulder problems. One study reported that up to 30% of the displaced clavicle fractures that healed with malunion results in profound symptoms and discomfort of the shoulder.

Surgery, with plate osteosynthesis of the displaced clavicle fracture, has in several studies been associated with a high success rate and few complications. To date only one randomized trial comparing conservative treatment with plate osteosynthesis of the displaced midshaft fracture has been done. This Canadian multi-center study from 2007, where 132 patients were randomized (111 patients completing), concludes that there is a small significant improvement in functional outcome in patients where the fracture has been osteosynthesised compared with conservative treatment. This study recommends surgery of displaced fractures in active patients.

Recently two review articles have questioned the results from the Canadian study because it is unclear whether the poorer functional outcome in the conservatively treated group is due to the non-unions in this group (14.2%). They both conclude that there is an estimated risk of overtreatment as a numbers-needed-to-treat analysis estimates the 9 operations is needed to prevent 1 non-union.