Closed Femoral Nailing of Acute Femoral Shaft Fractures with the AO-Femoral Distractor: An Educational Corner

Background: femoral shaft fractures regularly occur after major trauma, such as road traffic accidents and falls from a height (1, 2). these fractures usually are associated with concurrent injuries due to the high-energy forces in the trauma (3). in addition, due to osteopenia, this type of fracture is also frequent in the elderly population (1, 4). the ao foundation/orthopedic trauma association (ao/ota) has categorized femoral shaft fractures into three subtypes: a, b, and c; they represent the simple fracture, fractures with more than two fragments (with maintained continuity), and complicated with disjoined bone cortex subsequently (5).