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The application of bone plates in traditional surgery and minimally invasive surgery each has its own characteristics. The following is a comparison from multiple aspects:
Surgical incision and trauma
Traditional surgery: Traditional surgical methods such as bone plate and screw fixation result in relatively large incisions, more dissection damage during the operation, and significant damage to the surrounding tissues. For example, for left tibiofibular fractures, traditional bone plate and screw fixation surgery is adopted. The surgical incision is large, which will increase the risk of postoperative incision infection. At the same time, patients have obvious pain after the operation and a long recovery period.
Minimally invasive surgery: Minimally invasive surgery emphasizes small incisions or percutaneous operations, causing less damage to surrounding tissues and less bleeding. If the closed reduction prying technique is adopted for the fracture of the left calcaneus, the surgical risk is low, the risk of incision infection and necrosis after incision is avoided, and the surgical trauma is small, significantly shortening the fracture healing time.
Postoperative recovery
Traditional surgery: Due to the large trauma, patients recover slowly after traditional surgery, have a long hospital stay, and the scars are obvious, which affects the appearance.
Minimally invasive surgery: After minimally invasive surgery, patients recover quickly, have a shorter hospital stay, and can start functional exercises earlier. The postoperative scar is small and not easily detectable, meeting the patient’s aesthetic needs.
Fixation effect and complications
Traditional surgery: Traditional surgery is reliable for fixation. By using internal fixators such as plates and screws, it can stabilize the fracture ends and promote fracture healing. However, in the early stage of bone plate fixation, the movement is significantly restricted, and weight-bearing is prone to cause short plates and broken screws, which can easily lead to nonunion of the bone. The weight-bearing exercise time is late, the recovery effect is poor, and the duration is long.
Minimally invasive surgery: Minimally invasive surgeries such as minimally invasive plate bone setting (MIPO) achieve relative stability of the fracture end through indirect reduction and percutaneous plate fixation. They have fewer complications and reduce the risk of postoperative infection, nerve damage and other complications. However, this technique has high requirements, demanding a high level of surgical skills and rich clinical experience. Its application scope is limited and it is mainly applicable to some fracture types with relatively good stability.
The difficulty and cost of surgical operation
Traditional surgery: Traditional surgical operations are relatively straightforward, have relatively lower requirements for the doctor’s surgical skills, and have relatively lower surgical costs.
Minimally invasive surgery: Minimally invasive surgery requires the use of special instruments and equipment, such as sights and guides, etc. The surgical operation is relatively difficult, and it demands a high level of surgical skills and experience from the doctor. Moreover, the price of MIPO plates is relatively high, and the surgical cost is relatively high.