Abstract

Sixty-two patients with fractures of the shoulder (22 clavicular fractures, 36 proximal humeral fractures and 4 scapular fractures) were treated at Department of Orthopedic Surgery, College of Medicine, Seoul National University between January, 1978 and October 1988. They were followed up between six months and three and half years with the aver-age of 1.2 years. Mean ages were 34.8 years in clavicular fractures, 52.9 years in proximal humeral fractures and 37.6 years in scapular fractures. Traffic accident was the most common cause of injury in all the shoulder fractures. In clavicular fractures, twelve were middle third and ten were lateral third fractures (four type I and six type II). Proximal humeral fractures were classified according to Neer``s classification, there were seven one-part(20%), seventeen two-part(41%), eight three-part(22%) and four four-part(11%) fractures or fracture-dislocations. In scapular fractures, there were two body fractures, one neck and one complex fractures involving the glenoid. Treatment and its results were as follows; 1. In clavicular fractures, middle third fractures were treated conservatively except two, which was unable to manually reduced. Type I lateral fractures were treated by closed method and type II by open method. 2. Complications of clavicular fractures were one nonunion, two malunion, one delayed union and one stiff joint in middle third fractures, and one broken pin, one loss of fix-ation in type II lateral third fractures. 3. In proximal humeral fractures, one-part and two-part fractures were treated conserva-tively except two old two-part fracture-dislocations. Three-part fractures were treated by open method except two with closed method and four-part fractures by two open method and two prosthesis. 4. Clinically, thirty-two(89%) proximal humeral fractures showed excellent or satisfac-tory tory results. 5. In scapular fractures, one glenoid fracture were treated by open method and others conservatively. All showed satisfactory union of fractures.