Outcomes in patients with late debridement of open long bone fractures of the lower extremities in penetrating trauma: a retrospective review of the National Trauma Data Bank

Background: The morbidity and mortality associated with open long bone fractures have been greatly reduced due to antibiotics and early surgical washout and debridement. Guidelines recommend early washout and debridement within 6–8 h; however, newer studies have shown that delaying surgical washout and debridement up to 24 h can be done safely without an increase in surgical site infection, wound nonunion or sepsis. All studies thus far have looked at combined blunt and penetrating open long bone fractures, without distinguishing between mechanism or type of injury. Our study looked specifically at open long bone fractures of the lower extremity caused by a penetrating mechanism of injury. Methods: We utilized the US National Trauma Data Bank and included patients who had diagnosis of lower extremity open long bone fracture from a penetrating mechanism and underwent irrigation and debridement (I&D) within 24 h of arriving to the hospital. Results: A total of 1014 patients qualified for the study. Of those, 736 (72.6%) patients underwent an I&D within 8 h and 278 (27.4%) underwent an I&D between 8 and 24 h after hospital arrival. When examining the patient outcomes, there were few cases and no significant differences in the occurrence of surgical site infections, sepsis or wound disruptions between the two groups. Conclusion: The majority of the open long bone fractures were due to firearm injury. I&D of penetrating open long bone fracture can be performed within 24 h without any added infective morbidity.