Autologous grafts of double-strut fibular cortical bone plate to treat the fractures and defects of distal femur: a case report and review of literature.

We reported a 23-year-old man who was involved in a high-speed motorcycle accident. He sustained a closed fracture at the right distal femur. The primary fracture happened on February 2008. He underwent open reduction and internal fixation with cloverleaf plate. And one hundred days after the surgery, the proximal screws were pulled-out, but the bone union was not achieved. Treatment consisted of exchanging the cloverleaf plate with a locking compression plate and using an auto-iliac bone graft to fill the nonunion gap. In July 2009, the patient had a sharp pain in the right lower limb. The X-ray revealed that the plate implanted last year was broken, causing a nonunion at the fracture site. Immediately the plate and screws were removed and an intramedullary nail was inserted reversely from the distal femur as well as a 7 cm long bone from the right fibula was extracted and longitudinally split into two pieces to construct cortical bone plates. Then we placed them laterally and medially to fracture site, drilled two holes respectively, and fastened them with suture. We carried on auto-iliac bone grafting with the nonunion bone grafts. The follow-up at 15 months after operation showed that the treatment was successful, X-ray confirmed that there was no rotation and no angular or short deformity. We briefly reviewed the literature regarding such an unusual presentation and discussed in details the possible etiology and the advantages of autologous double-strut fibular grafts to cope with such an intractable situation.