Intertrochanteric hip fracture in a 6-year-old girl treated with pediatric sliding hip screw: case report

Hip fractures are very common in adults, but are rare entities in children, comprising less than 1% of all pediatric fractures. The authors present a clinical case of a 6-year-old girl with an intertrochanteric hip fracture — displaced Delbet’s type IV — treated with a pediatric sliding hip screw. The osteosynthesis material was removed 10 months later. The Delbet type IV hip fractures corresponds to 12% of all pediatric hip fractures. This type of fractures in children older than 3 years old should be treated with internal fixation with a sliding hip screw or a proximal femur locking plate. Preferably the reduction of the fracture should be done within 24 hours. Despite the delay of the surgical procedure, the patient got an excellent recovery without any of the complications described in the literature with a follow-up of 26 months upon the implant-removal surgery.