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Orthopaedics

Open Fractures

Built from Orthopedic Trauma Essentials

The first 25 slides of Open Fractures
The first 25 slides, exactly as they appear. The full deck has 80 content slides.

What’s inside

7 sections · 80 slides

  1. 01

    Overview

    • Four questions this topic answers

    1 slide

  2. 02

    What an open fracture is

    Why a broken bone that reaches the outside world is a different problem

    • A broken bone that meets the outside world
    • The two complications everything is aimed at
    • A broken tibia seen on X-ray
    • How severity is graded
    • The severity ladder, step by step
    • Debridement: the operation that decides the outcome

    6 slides

  3. 03

    Timing of surgical debridement

    Is the traditional 6-hour rule still supported?

    • Where the 6-hour rule came from
    • What replaced the single deadline
    • The 6-hour rule tested in open tibial fractures
    • Why that result cannot be read alone
    • A second, larger pooled analysis
    • The same blind spot, stated plainly
    • A confounder, in one line
    • GOLIATH: delay does matter after all
    • Reading an odds ratio without maths
    • GOLIATH: the numbers by injury type
    • What GOLIATH concluded
    • Old rule versus current reading
    • A fourth review, and what it added
    • What those authors said matters more than the clock
    • Injuries that still go to theatre immediately
    • The conditions that make a longer window safe
    • Timing: the bottom line

    17 slides

  4. 04

    Antibiotic prophylaxis

    Which drug, how soon, and for how long, graded by injury severity

    • The one intervention that consistently works
    • Three things that decide whether it works
    • Prevention must be stratified, not standardised
    • The foundational cohort study
    • The same 3-hour signal in severe tibial injuries
    • From injury to first dose
    • Which organisms, in the milder grades
    • Which organisms, in type III injuries
    • Choosing cover by grade
    • How long: the randomised answer
    • What the consensus groups settled on
    • Why a longer course is actively worse
    • Dirty wounds need one more drug
    • The problem with aminoglycosides
    • What contemporary consensus asks for instead
    • Antibiotics: the bottom line
    • How to read the antibiotic table
    • Summary of evidence-based antibiotic strategy by fracture severity

    18 slides

  5. 05

    Closing the wound

    Early cover or delayed cover in type III open fractures

    • Why closure strategy is not a detail
    • The old habit and the challenge to it
    • Godina's landmark observation
    • What Godina's study set up
    • Fix and flap
    • The fix-and-flap sequence
    • Where this care should happen
    • Fix does not have to mean a nail on day one
    • Holding the bone from outside the limb
    • Rebuilding bone that has been lost
    • A ring frame on the lower leg
    • The same frame seen on X-ray
    • Definitive metalwork inside the tibia
    • When early closure is the wrong choice
    • Closure: the bottom line

    15 slides

  6. 06

    Negative pressure wound therapy

    A widely used dressing that high-quality evidence has not confirmed

    • Suction on a wound: what it is
    • Foam dressing cut to the shape of the wound
    • Sealed film and suction pad on a limb
    • The pump and collection canister
    • 5.4%
    • What Stannard's study actually was
    • What the pooled analyses report
    • The Cochrane verdict
    • WOLLF: the trial that settled the question
    • What WOLLF found
    • Early promise versus later trials
    • NPWT: the bottom line

    12 slides

  7. 07

    Pulling it together

    What actually changes the outcome in an open fracture

    • What actually changes the outcome
    • Four answers in four lines
    • Traps to avoid in exams and on the ward
    • Where the evidence is still thin
    • References
    • References (continued)
    • References (continued)
    • References (continued)
    • References (continued)
    • Orthopedic Trauma Essentials 2026

    11 slides