Posterolateral Plating of Distal Tibia Fractures: Extending the Use of a Familiar Approach

Distal tibia fractures present challenges in surgical management and when nailing is not an option, plate osteosynthesis is performed. This is usually done with a minimally invasive approach to reduce the risk of wound complications in an already fragile soft-tissue envelope. We propose that a posterolateral open approach can lead to stable fixation construct and comes with advantages of approaching fibula fractures via same approach and has a thicker soft tissue envelope over the fixation. We report a series of distal tibia fractures with posterolateral plate fixation and present the outcomes.