Classification of medial fractures of the femoral neck.

In this study 444 consecutive cases of medial fracture of the femoral neck treated in the city of Turku are considered on the basis of the proposals of Garden (1961) and Pauwels (Leitz 1966) for the classification of fracture types. In order to find out what kind of classification is most practical and coherent a retrospective comparison of the progress of healing was made on the basis of the aforementioned classifications of fracture. Garden's classification proved to be far more logical and was much more reliable for the prognosis of recovery. For this reason and also because of the ease with which his criteria can be applied, the present authors recommend the general use of Garden's classification.