comparison of proximal femur locking compression plate and intramedullary nailing in the treatment of sub-trochanteric fractures

Background: the sub-trochanteric (st) fracture is relatively common. it does not have a single treatment but it can be repaired in a variety of ways. objectives: the aim of this study was to compare the proximal femur locking compression plate (pflcp) and intramedullary nailing in the treatment of st fracture. methods: this cross-sectional study was performed on 56 patients with st fracture who referred to firoozgar hospital, tehran, iran, between january 2014 and december 2018. the patients were equally divided into two groups, pflcp group and nailing group. the recovery and postoperative complications were evaluated by the harris hip score (hhs). results: of the 56 eligible patients examined, 49 (87.5%) were male. the overall mean age was 42.7 ± 16.2 years. the status of the union was significantly better in the pflcp group than in the nailing group (p = 0.038). the total mean hhs was 88.9 ± 14.1 with no significant difference between the two groups. the results of the logistic regression model showed that sex and age could signifi- cantly decrease the hhs. thus, the hhs was influenced by female sex (or = 0.851) and age of more than 60 (or = 0.829). conclusions: pflcp provides an appropriate union, expedites the operation, and yields a very good hhs. therefore, it can work even better than intramedullary nailing in some parameters, such as pain after the operation.