Abstract

*Youness Dahmani, Ayoub Mjidila, Reda Allah Bassir, Moncef Boufettal, Mohamed Kharmaz, Moulay Omar Lamrani and Mohammed Saleh Berrada

ABSTRACT

The floating knee is a particular lesional entity described to refer to a fracture of the femur associated with a fracture of at least one of the two bones of the homolateral leg. It is a 38-month retrospective study from June 2008 to September 2011 of patients followed and treated at the Traumato-Orthopedics Department of the Ibn Sina Hospital in Rabat. We included in our work the consenting floating knee and complete medical record. The incidence of the floating knee is clearly increasing, with an average of 5 cases per year. The 15 patients are 13 men, 2 women; male predominance reaching 85%. The average age is 35 years (between 21 and 61 years). All of our patients are victims of road accidents, including 80% motorcyclists, whose polytrauma rate is 64%. The cutaneous opening is present in 12 patients against 3 completely closed floating knees. External fixation was performed 9 times at the tibia because of frequent and severe skin openings, while internal fixation was frequently performed at the femur. Functional results in our study were excellent or good in 59% of cases; and average or poor in 41% of cases. Osteosynthesis and early rehabilitation are recommended by our authors for a better result.