Abstract
There has been little research comparing rates of infectious complications between buried and percutaneous Kirschner wire (K-wire) use in hand trauma surgery. The additional cost of removing buried wires should be justified by a demonstrable reduction in the frequency and/or severity of infectious complications. We prospectively collected data on infective complications associated with K-wire use during the course of 1 year at our hand trauma unit. We observed seven (10%) infections in 70 patients where wires were left protruding and three (9%) infections in 34 patients where wires were buried. There was no statistically significant difference in the rate of infectious complications. A cost analysis was performed, taking into account infectious complications and the cost of their management. Burying K-wires resulted in an extra cost of £235.51 per patient compared to £90.80 per patient for percutaneous K-wires. Thus, the use of buried K-wires results in a £144.71 increase in cost per patient. Clinicians should consider these findings, as well as other (medical) considerations, when making the decision whether to bury K-wires.
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Conflict of interest
All named authors hereby declare that they have no conflicts of interest to disclose. This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. The local Research and Development department approved the study.
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Koç, T., Ahmed, J. & Aleksyeyenko, S. Buried Kirschner wires in hand trauma. Eur J Plast Surg 35, 803–807 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00238-012-0708-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00238-012-0708-0