R. 7. Beyene1, S. M. Kettyle1, R. Golden1, D. Milzman1, J. A. Sava1 1MedStar Washington Hospital Center,Washington, DC, USA
Introduction:
Bicycle use has increased in urban areas, both as transportation and recreation. This increased popularity has lead to more bicycle accidents and bicycle-related orthopedic injuries and procedures. Previous studies have focused on head trauma, but operative orthopedic trauma in bicycle crashes remains poorly described. This study was designed to characterize injury patterns in urban cyclists presenting to a large metropolitan care system.
Methods:
Retrospective four-year review of University HealthSystem Consortium database for all patients admitted after bicycle injury to 8 member hospitals in the MedStar system, serving the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. Patient demographics were recorded, as were admission status, injury site and type, and type of intervention.
Results:
3594 patients were included in this study. Of those, 268 (7.5%) required operative management, 476 (13.2%) required non-operative intervention (such as splinting), and 2850 (79.3%) required no orthopedic intervention. Among the 1941 patients with orthopedic injures, 1197 (61.7%) required no orthopedic interventions. Patients who required an operation were older than those who had non-operative or no intervention. Open reduction internal fixation (ORIF) was the most commonly performed procedure (Fig.1). Patients who did no require a procedure primarily had contusions, sprain, open wounds, and fractures.
Conclusion:
In this large review, bicycle related orthopedic injuries were rarely operative. Those that required operation were fractures in an older subset. Further study into bicycle and rider characteristics should be studied to help predict need for orthopedic intervention.
