Unstable fractures of the pelvis treated by external fixation.

Forty-five patients with an unstable fracture of the pelvic ring, for whom the conventional treatment would have been bed rest with skeletal traction or with a pelvic sling, were treated with the Hoffmann external-fixation apparatus. In eighteen fractures of the lateral compression type and fourteen fractures of the anteroposterior compression type, the treatment was successful. Proximal migration of the hemipelvis occurred in four of the eleven patients with a fracture of the unilateral shear type. There were two deaths from associated injuries.