[Surgical treatment of trochanteric femoral fractures with G. Küntscher Y-nailing].

For the treatment of trochanteric fractures different osteosynthetic devices are available. One of these is Küntscher's y-nail, which has been already developed in 1939, but is nowadays rarely used. We have evaluated data on 632 patients, treated between 1975 and 1985 with this method. In this high aged (78 years average) multimorbid group of patients the postoperative mortality reached 20.9%. Complications of osteosynthesis appeared only in 5.8%, poor functional results were noticed in even less than 1%. The full weight stability immediately after the operation independently from the type of fracture was considered as a main advantage of the method. Compared to other osteosynthetic devices the y-nailing represents an at least equivalent method, which is able to stabilize all types of trochanteric fractures of the elderly people with simple technique and good results.