An epidemiological evaluation of pediatric long bone fractures — a retrospective cohort study of 2716 patients from two Swiss tertiary pediatric hospitals

Children are at a high risk of injury with up to one of every four children sustaining an injury annually [1],[2]. Fractures are associated with 10% to 25% of these injuries [3], where the lifetime fracture risk is up to 40% for girls and as high as up to 64% for boys [4]-[9]. With fractures having a considerable impact on the daily living and activity of affected children, they represent an important topic of public health [10],[11].

In 2007, the AO Pediatric Comprehensive Classification of Long Bone Fractures (PCCF) [12] was developed and validated according to a 3-phase concept proposed by Audigé et al. [13]. The initial two validation phases showed that the classification process based on radiographic assessment is reliable and accurate [14],[15] and that the PCCF system can be considered clinically relevant by pediatric surgeons. The AO Comprehensive Injury Automatic Classifier (AO COIAC) software [16] was developed for testing in a clinical setting following the 3rd and final validation phase, with the purpose of fully documenting and evaluating pediatric long bone fractures, their causes, classification codes, treatments, occurrence of associated complications, and outcomes.

Different risk factors for sustaining fractures in children have been reported, such as age, sex, season, risk-taking behavior, bone mineral density (BMD), sports, but also violence and race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status [4],[11],[17]-[22]. Overweight and obesity seem to have an increasing impact [23]-[28], possibly due to lower bone mass relative to body size, greater mechanical load by falls or reduced body balance [17],[20],[29]-[31], and therefore, became major topics of interest for both treating physicians and public health [32].

As the amount of data is still limited, further epidemiological data are needed to better understand the occurrence of pediatric long bone fractures and for the planning of future prevention strategies. The aim of this retrospective cohort study was to review the demographic data of all recorded pediatric long bone fractures at the University Children’s Hospitals in Bern and Lausanne and to evaluate any differences between these data. This is the first time that a large patient cohort was classified according to the AO PCCF using the AO COIAC software to collect epidemiological data on pediatric long bone fractures.

The present study was a retrospective cohort study to survey fractures with open physes in children and adolescents younger than 17 years of age in Switzerland. All fractures were sustained between January 2009 and December 2011. Inclusion criteria were documented pediatric long bone fractures in children (in- and outpatient cases) treated at the University Children’s Hospitals in Bern (Inselspital) and Lausanne. Ethical approval from the regional ethic committees (ethical commission canton of Bern, Bern, Switzerland and ethical commission canton of Vaud, Lausanne, Switzerland) was obtained for both clinics. The Children’s Hospital in Lausanne is a tertiary care university hospital, serving as a primary care center for the city of Lausanne, which has approximately 160′000 inhabitants. The Children’s Hospital in Bern is also a tertiary care university hospital, serving as a primary care center for the city of Bern, with a population of 170′000, and the adjacent cities. Being the only children’s hospitals in the aforementioned cities, a majority of children up to the age of 16 are treated in these hospitals (approx. 80%). Twenty-four-hour in- and outpatient primary emergency service is provided to patients for both cities, but also for the entire cantons of Bern and Vaud and the adjoining cantons.

All long bone fractures were classified by an experienced pediatric trauma surgeon in each clinic using the AO PCCF system [15] on the basis of digitalized anteroposterior and lateral view radiographs. Documentation of all classified data was made using the specialized AO COIAC software [33], which facilitates the diagnosis and coding of fractures (Figure 1). In addition to fracture classification, available epidemiological data including age, sex, body mass index (BMI), date and time of injury, cause of injury and data concerning treatment (extracted from digitalized or paper patient charts) were recorded.

Patients were classified into four age groups including: 1) infants (< 2 years); 2) preschool children (2 to < 6 years); 3) school children (6 to < 11 years); and 4) adolescents (11 to < 17 years). The type of accident was divided into seven major categories: 1) home accidents (including all those occurring within the house and yard except on playing devices, e.g. trampoline); 2) school accidents (including accidents occurring at school or kindergarten); 3) playground accidents (including all accidents occurring on public and private playgrounds as well as all accidents with outdoor playing devices); 4) leisure activities; 5) traffic accidents (including all accidents associated with any kind of transportation); 6) falls and 7) others (including long bone fractures due to non-accidental injuries or any undefined accident types). Furthermore, differentiations were made between boys and girls, upper and lower limbs and the time at which fractures were sustained.

For most of the patients undergoing a conventional radiograph at the Children’s Hospital in Bern, height and weight measurements were documented prior to the examination to adapt the individual’s radiation exposure. Therefore, retrospective BMI calculations were possible for these patients. Using this baseline characteristic, the BMI distribution of this subpopulation was compared to the World Health Organization (WHO) BMI-for-age percentiles for boys and girls [34] to further explore BMI as a potential risk factor for pediatric fractures. Severe thinness is defined as a BMI at or above the 3rd percentile and below the 15th percentile for children of the same age and sex; thinness as a BMI at or above the 15th percentile and below the 50th percentile; normal weight children present with a BMI at or above the 50th percentile and below the 85th percentile; overweight children with a BMI at or above the 85th and below the 97th percentile and obesity is defined as a BMI at or above the 97th percentile. For the BMI-for-age percentiles in children < 2 years, the WHO recommends adding or subtracting 0.7 cm from the height before calculating the BMI, depending on whether the child’s height was measured in a standing or lying position, respectively. As it was not known whether the height of children aged < 2 years was measured while standing or lying, BMI calculations were not applicable for this group, and infants were excluded from BMI calculations. In order to compare the proportion of overweight and obese children in our study population to the overall Swiss population in patients aged between 6 and 12 years (as grouped by Swiss surveys before), we exclusively amended our patient group and additionally performed this analysis in children aged 6 to12 years.

All data collected with AO COIAC were transferred into Intercooled Stata version 12 (StataCorp LP, College Station, TX, USA). Study parameters were analyzed and tabulated using standard descriptive statistics. The one-sample test of proportions was used to compare the proportions of overweight and obese children in boys and girls aged between 6 and 12 years in this study with those in boys (18.7%) and girls (17.0%) in the same age category in Switzerland (i.e. with a BMI above the 85^th percentile), respectively. The chi-square test was used to assess the relationship between two categorical variables (e.g. BMI classes and age classes).

In the presented study we were able to describe distinct age and sex related differences in the fractured bone distribution and different accident types. Furthermore, compared with the overall Swiss population of similar age, we identified a higher percentage of overweight and obese children in our study population. This observation suggests that overweight and obese children are at increased risk of sustaining a fracture.

While the overall predominance of fractures sustained by boys over girls with odds of 1.5:1 was consistent with current knowledge [11],[20], these odds varied according to our predefined age groups. Biological and behavioral differences related to sex and age are thought to particularly explain the male predominance in the adolescent patient group. BMD decreases towards the age of pubertal peak height velocity with girls experiencing this peak earlier than boys [37]. This biological effect might contribute to the male predominance in adolescents in this study and reflects the finding of Faulkner et al. that the decrease in BMD in adolescents did coincide with an increase of accidents while accidents decreased as BMD rebounded after peak height velocity [37]. Furthermore, a behavioral change in the types of general activities undertaken as well as the level of risk taking can be observed with increasing age.

In accordance with published data, boys were more likely to sustain femoral fractures [38],[39]. However, we did not observe a bimodal distribution of these fracture types with peaks around the ages of 2 to 5 and 14 to 17 years as reported by Hinton et al. [40]. One explanation for the lack of the second peak could be the small amount of motor vehicle accident-related long bone fractures reported in this study compared to other studies [39]-[41]. High-energy injuries, especially those sustained during motor vehicle accidents, are thought to be the main reason for femoral fractures in adolescents [39],[41].

Petersen et al. reported a doubling in the prevalence of overweight and obese children and adolescents from 1986 to 2001, reaching 23.1% (18.3% overweight and 4.8% obese children) at or above the 85^th BMI-for-age related percentile [42]. Our study population showed a slightly higher proportion that significantly increased with increasing age; this observation may reflect the known global trend of mounting numbers of overweight and obese children and adolescents as predicted by the WHO [32], but more likely reflects the relationship between overweight status and fracture risk.

National Swiss surveys found a decrease in the number of overweight and obese children between 2002 and 2007 following a stabilization in the prevalence of childhood obesity in 2009; the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children from 6 to 12 years was 19.9% for boys and 18.9% for girls in 2002 compared to 18.7% for boys and 17.0% for girls in 2009 [43],[44]. Compared to the overall Swiss population, the proportions of overweight and obese girls and boys in the same age group were higher in this study, with a significantly higher proportion of overweight boys (33%; p < 0.0001) and a clear tendency but not significantly higher proportion in girls (20%; p = 0.12). These findings may additionally point towards an increased risk for overweight and obese children for sustaining a fracture.

Kessler et al. [45] reported a statistically significantly higher proportion of lower limb fractures in overweight and obese children. Although we made a similar observation, this relation was not significant in our study.

Though categorized differently, our data confirmed recently published data reporting falls being the leading cause for fractures in children and adolescents (27% in this study) with most of the fractures resulting from a fall from low height (57% within this group) [22].

Children older than 5 years sustain more sport-related injuries as they start to pursue more organized sports activities (i.e. in sports clubs) around this age [20]. There was a shift from home- and playground-related fractures occurring in infants and preschool children towards fractures resulting from sports activities undertaken by the older age groups of our study population. Due to the retrospective data collection, we could not reliably determine whether the respective sports activities were organized or not. The manner in which the “accident type” was categorized is not recognized as standard, although attempts were made to match previous reports to facilitate the comparison of results. While this may be imperfect, sports club-related long bone fractures defined in our population were reported more often for school age and adolescent patients and reflect the above mentioned.

During the winter months a seasonal peak (33%) of winter leisure activity-related fractures was observed at both Children’s Hospitals, Bern and Lausanne.

Consistent with previous reports [46],[47], forearm fractures were mainly associated with snowboard accidents, whereas lower leg fractures were mostly sustained while skiing. Moreover, 49% of all lower leg fractures in the ‘leisure activities’ category were sustained while skiing, and skiing was the main reason for lower leg fractures. The risk of sustaining a fracture during snowboarding has been reported to be twice the risk of sustaining a fracture during skiing [17],[48]. In our study population, there were 3.5 times more fractures following skiing than following snowboarding; however, this might be explained by the 4.8 times higher proportion of the Swiss population practicing skiing compared to snowboarding [49].

The rising popularity of trampolines in yards and playgrounds has been followed by an increase in trampoline-related injuries impacting the physical health of children and adolescents [50]. Our study supported this assumption, as together with accidents on slides and swings, trampoline accidents represented one of the three leading causes for playground activity related fractures.

The increased popularity of non-motorized scooters since the beginning of this century [51], especially for school age children and adolescents, was reflected in our study. Besides cycling, non-motorized scooters were the second most frequently reported cause for long bone fractures sustained during traffic accidents.

Finally, we have to acknowledge that our rate of non-accidental injuries is rather low with only three patients. Most likely, this is due to underreporting and our study focusing on long-bone fractures, but not on non-accidental injuries in general.

This study has its limitations, in particular, its retrospective study design. Data quality was dependent on the completeness of the patient charts, specifically regarding the accident type. The categorization of pediatric accident data is often prone to error or misclassification because younger children, in particular, may have difficulties in explaining the correct course of events or the accident occurred unobserved. The fact that approximately 80% of all pediatric long bone fractures are treated in the Children’s hospitals in Bern and Lausanne could lead to potential publication biaz assuming that the remaining 20% of long bone fractures could present differently. As the two hospitals do not cover 100% of patients of the respective regions, epidemiological data such as incidences could not be provided. Nonetheless, the large cohort is a strength of this study.

In conclusion, our retrospective cohort study provided valuable epidemiological data about pediatric long bone fractures in a large Swiss cohort of children and adolescents and may contribute to the development of appropriate prevention strategies in the future. Comprehensive epidemiological data could also serve as a future teaching aid to orthopedic and trauma surgeons in training.

The AO PCCF system was successfully used to classify all encountered fractures; the detailed fracture patterns however were beyond the scope of this paper. The AO COIAC software proved to be practical and useful in the clinical context, providing the basis for a standardized, multicenter documentation of pediatric long bone fractures. We encourage any hospital treating pediatric fractures to adopt the AO PCCF system and use the freely available AO COIAC software [16].

Joeris A. is a pediatric surgeon, who worked for 10 years at the Children’s Hospital in Bern, Switzerland, mainly in pediatric traumatology and orthopedics. He was involved in the second AO PCCF validation phase. He completed a 6-month fellowship at AOCID between July and December 2012. Since April 2013 he holds the position of the Medical Scientific Affairs Manager at AOCID and is globally involved in a broad spectrum of clinical trials in traumatology and orthopedics. Lutz N. is a general and pediatric trauma surgeon with more than 15 years experience in pediatric traumatology at a tertiary care center. He is especially interested in pediatric fractures and obesity. Currently, he holds the position head of pediatric surgical emergencies in the University Hospital in Lausanne in Switzerland and works as a partner for the pediatric orthopedic and traumatology units at the same hospital. Wicki B. is a physician with a postgraduate degree in Pharmaceutical Medicine and over 20 years of in-depth clinical development experience with expertise in multiple therapeutic areas. She currently holds the position of a Principal Medical Writer II at Celgene International in Boudry, Switzerland. Slongo T. is a pediatric surgeon who was the head of the pediatric traumatology and orthopedics division at the Children’s Hospital in Bern, Switzerland for more than 30 years. Additionally he was the deputy head of the department for pediatric surgery at the same hospital for many years. He was a member of the AO Classification Advisory Group and therefore involved in the development of the AO PCCF and its validation and the development of AO COIAC. Audigé L. is a clinical epidemiologist and has worked since 2000 as methodologist for AOCID in the implementation of clinical studies in the field of traumatology and orthopedics. He was coordinator of the AO Classification Advisory Group and led several Classification Groups, in particular for the development and validation of the AO PCCF. He currently holds the position of Senior Research Fellow at the Schulthess Clinic in Zurich Switzerland.