Clinical evaluation of surgically treated calcaneus fractures: comparison of three methods of evaluation

Abstract

Objective: A retrospective study was carried out between April, 2002 and February, 2005 toevaluate the functional result of the surgical treatment of patients with intra-articular displacedcalcaneus’s fractures, treated by open reduction and internal fixation, in our hospital, and comparethree methods of functional clinical evaluation (American Orthopaedic Foot And AnkleSociety – AOFAS –, Nebraska Health Foundation and Maryland). Methods: Forty-two patientswere evaluated, in a total of 46 fractured feet. The mean age was 43 years old, themost frequent trauma mechanism was fall from height (89%) and there were associatedfractures in seven cases. All fractures were classifies according to classificationsystem proposed by Sanders et al., in 1993, with the majority of the cases classified as grade II (60,27%). Results: Our evaluations showed good results with the surgical treatment of theses fractures, with a meanof points higher than 80 in all methods used. The methods showed positive linear correlation when compared, using the Pearsoncorrelation – values varied from 0,940 to 0,951 –, but with variable concordances depending on the method compared (Kappacoefficient varying from 0,33 to 0,76). Conclusions: We conclude that anyone of the scales may be used as evaluation tool; however,they may not be compared to each other, because they do not show high level of concordance.