A retrospective study about functional outcome and quality of life after surgical fixation of insufficiency pelvic ring injuries

Pelvic ring injuries are relatively rare injuries [1, 2], accounting for only about 3% of all fractures. However, polytraumatized patients were diagnosed with pelvic ring injuries in almost 25% of cases [1, 2]. Furthermore, in older patients pelvic injuries occur frequently [1, 3]. A reason is the low-energy trauma mechanism, which leads to fractures in bone with a lower bone density [1]. Such fractures, referred to as fragility fractures, could be both a symptom or a sign of osteoporosis. The incidence of pelvic ring fractures in older people is 90/100,000 and it is increasing due to demographic changes [3], as reflected by the steadily increasing proportion of older people in any population, leading generally to an aging population (for details see reference [3]). Fragility fractures, are traditionally treated conservatively [3]. The conservative treatment includes optimization of analgesia and pain-adapted mobilization. However, this conservative treatment is associated with potentially severe mid-term and long-term complications [4] including a high mortality rate, i.e. the mortality rate within one year after the fracture is reported to be 19% and even higher (27%) when patients lived on their own or in nursing homes after the fractured pelvis [3].

Pelvic injuries including fragility fractures can be distinguished as described by Tile [5] and classified according to Young and Burgess [6] and Rommens and Hofmann [7], respectively. The injuries can occur in multiple different ways. Among those, pure sacroiliac fractures or transiliacal fractures are much rarer in fragility fractures than lateral sacral fractures close to the iliosacral joint. Very little has been reported on the midterm clinical and functional outcome of surgical treatment in this population. In the present study, we wanted to investigate the clinical and functional outcome after surgical treatment of fragility fractures of the pelvis to determine whether these patients benefit from surgical care.

Ninety-four patients (mean age: 72.70 years (range 60–87 years); 59 females and 35 males) with fragility fractures of the posterior pelvic ring were included in the study. Of those, 83 patients (88%) returned the completed questionnaire. Figure 3a shows the age and gender distribution of the 83 patients who participated in the study.

Figure 3b and Table 3 show the cause of the injuries of the participating patients. The primary cause of the injury was a fall in the domestic environment (36.14%) such as tripping over the edge of a carpet, symptoms of vertigo and gait insecurity. The second major causes were injuries associated with a fall from low height (27.71%), i.e. less than 0.5 m (falling out of bed, fall from a standing height because of symptoms of vertigo). There was no specific history of trauma in 13.25% of cases. In 22.89% of the cases, the cause of the injury was not reported (Table 3; Fig. 3b).

Fragility fractures of the pelvis are often caused by low-energy trauma, in particularly in older patients [1]. In some cases, these injuries occur without any history of trauma. Osteoporosis is a common finding in the majority of these patients. It explains the present gender distribution of the patients, indicating that postmenopausal women are more affected by fragility fractures than men (see Table 2). This observation is also in line with the current report by Rommens et al. [7], describing that more than two-thirds of the patients with fragility fractures were females. Fragility fractures are traditionally treated conservatively. This treatment includes a period of bedrest and immobility which puts patients at risk of both severe early and long-term complications [3, 4]. According to Maier et al. [4], the outcome of a conservative therapy is poor, i.e. it is frequently associated with loss of social and physical independence, autonomy and a high mortality rate. Percutaneous insertion of sacroiliac screws is a surgical method to stabilize fractures in the area of the posterior pelvic ring. Recently, it had been shown that an anatomic reduction of the pelvic ring positively affects the long-term well-being of the patients [11]. In the cases of fragility fractures of the posterior pelvic ring, anatomical reduction is now less important, as there is often no major displacement. Rather, it is about stabilizing the posterior pelvic ring in order to relieve the patients’ pain. If a decision to undertake surgical treatment is instigated it is important to avoid any complications. The quality of life and functional outcome also need to be considered when performing surgery on these elderly patients with multiple co morbidities and potential osteoporosis. In the present study, we did not experience any long-term complications such as death or loss of independence during an observation period of at least one-year post surgery. We only observed low-grade complications such as pneumonia or uncomplicated urinary tract infection among the elderly patient population in approximately 47% of the cases (n = 39) during the inpatient stay, and they were cured by an antibiotic therapy. A complication rate of 47% appears to be high. However, it includes also low-grade complications such as the most common hospital-acquired infections which were treated with antibiotics without causing additional complications. It implies that patients need to be mobilized as early as possible, since the mortality rate among patients can increase significantly if they are immobilized in bed for an increased period of time without mobilization. After percutaneous screw fixation 2.41% (n = 2) of the patients needed a revision due to screw malposition. However, this rather small intervention did not affect a high scoring of the patients, showing that they achieved a good quality of life. Long-term complications associated with the conservative treatment [3] are overcome by the percutaneous screw fixation which results in functionally restoring the fractured posterior pelvic ring and lead to a long-term well-being of the patients [12].

The overall quality of life assessment after medical treatment is a subjective but relevant issue for the patient which can be critically judged using the Majeed score [9] in combination with the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) [10]. The SF-36 allows to interpret health aspects which include the physical and psychological status of the patient. We used this method to assess the health status of patients [13, 14], although it contains no specific reference values for pelvic fractures. We complemented therefore the SF-36 with the Majeed score covering the pelvic-specific questions [9] with the pre-casted questionnaire used in the present study. This combination allows not only to individually score the pain assessment of the SF-36 questionnaire, but adds additional important parameters relevant for judging the well-being of the patients. In accordance with the results of the SF-36 self-assessment of the patients, about 82% of the patients evaluated their pelvis injury-related health status positively, i.e. as an excellent outcome or good outcome (8%) of the medical treatment, and 10% were less positive with respect to their health condition and declared only fair or poor results. Best results (> 90%) were reported with respect to role limitations due to personal or emotional problems (RE), role limitations due to physical health problems (RP), bodily pain (BP) and social functioning (SF). Lower but still good scores were provided in the areas of vitality (VIT), physical functioning (PF), emotional well-being (EWB), general health perceptions (GH) as well as general mental health (MH) (Table 6).

Earlier studies, which did not use the Majeed score and evaluated only eleven patients led to similar results [15, 16]. Sanders et al. [15] examined their patients with the Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaire, which is a scoring system for lower back pain, and with the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) which assesses mainly subjective complaints. Mehling et al. [16] studied their patients with a Pelvic Outcome score system without providing detailed information about the underlying procedure, in combination with a subjective pain follow up over a period of one year. Nevertheless, both studies show that the patients have clearly benefited from the surgical treatment, whereas studies on conservative treatment of patients with fragility fractures of the posterior pelvic ring report significantly increased complications including mortality and loss of independence in everyday life, i.e. 19% of the patients died during the first year after the fracture and 27% of the patients had to move into nursing homes [3]. This study used the timed up-and-go-test to identify possible restrictions on mobility, and the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) to assess pain during movement and rest. Additionally, the patients were examined by score systems for assessing comorbidities (using the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) and American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA)-score). The use of these methods shows that surgical treatment by percutaneous screw fixation can preserve the functional capacity and thereby support social independence in elderly patients suffering from low-energy pelvic ring fractures. Our study confirms these recent results and includes additional aspects such as social functioning, vitality, general mental health and health perception as well as the mental health of the patients, all of which were positively scored by the patients. Furthermore, since the Majeed scores and the SF-36 results can be directly and positively correlated with respect to the subjectively felt well-being of the patients, the SF-36 questionnaire, although it does not address specific pelvic-related questions, can indeed be used to assess the success of the surgery of patients which experienced pelvic injuries. No obvious difference with respect to the subjective well-being was observed between patients which belong to different FFP classification groups. This finding suggests that surgical treatment with percutaneous sacroiliac screws is indeed favorable for all FFP-patients.

Furthermore, the NRS value, which quantified the subjective tenderness-related pain sensation at the sacroiliac joint of the patients, showed a very low value with an average of 1.60 ± 2.14 points which refers to a low subjective pain level postoperatively. Thus, the outcome of the present study allows the conclusion that surgical treatment as described here has a beneficial impact on the quality of life of older patients who suffered from a fragility fracture of the posterior pelvic ring.

It should be noted that our study has limitations. The Majeed score includes, among others, the aspects work and sexuality, and these aspects of life and well-being are difficult to evaluate in older patients. Another limitation of our study is the fact that in addition to the posterior pelvic ring the anterior pelvic ring was also injured in some cases (n = 35), be it as a fracture or an injury to the symphysis, of the os ischia or the os pubis. In the cases where a stable fracture situation could be established by percutaneous screw osteosynthesis, the anterior pelvic ring was not surgically addressed. However, if the fracture remained unstable, the anterior pelvic ring was additionally stabilized by implanting an external fixator. Our study focused on the posterior pelvic ring only. In addition, possible comorbidities of the patients such as smoking, diabetes and osteoporosis were not included as separate parameters in the study. Furthermore, the patients were not examined with respect to years after the surgery event, since the corresponding numbers of patients to be interviewed would not be suitable to provide a meaningful statistical analysis. Finally, we did not perform a comparative study with conservatively treated patients, and used published data for comparison instead. Since our results suggest a beneficial clinical outcome for patients which received surgical treatment, we plan a comparative randomized large-scale study to both confirm and extend our current results.

Operative treatment of patients with fragility fractures of the posterior pelvic ring, as described here, has a measurable positive impact on the well-being of patients when compared to conservative treatment without surgery. Whereas conservative treatment results both in 19% morbidity during the first year after the fracture [3] and an increase of sustainable pain [3, 4], such cases were not observed after surgery as revealed by the patients examined in our study. Thus, it appears that fixation of the fractures inhibits or even prevents early morbidity after the fracture and prevents pain as reported for patients that were treated conservatively. In addition, also general health perceptions, i.e. physical functioning, vitality, mental health, social functioning and emotional well-being, were not affected since patients reported that they lived up to the level prior to their accident. Therefore, surgical treatment of patients with fragility fractures as described here can add positively to the clinical outcome and should be considered.