Leo’s Leg Alignment – Esf Tibia - Treendale Vet Medical Centre

Leo’s Leg Alignment – Esf Tibia

The Catastrophe

Poor Leo jumped and slipped and landed awkwardly fracturing his tibia. He couldn’t walk on his leg. His mum and dad rushed him to Treendale Pet Medical.

Dr Rob felt his leg and could feel it was broken. Leo’s mum and dad were very sad. We needed to do X-rays and Leo would possibly need surgery.

The Fracture

When Leo fell and slipped he developed a nasty spiral fracture of his distal tibia that curved up the bone and it also fissured and split in many areas of the mid tibia. This was a nasty unstable fracture that needed surgery. Poor Leo.

This was a challenging fracture to repair because there was not a lot of bone on the distal fragment (the bottom bit) so it wasn’t possible to put a bone plate on it. The fracture was very unstable so a cast wasn’t going to work. What were we going to do to fix Leo’s leg?

The Repair

Due to the very small piece of bone we had to play with at the bottom of the fracture (the distal fragment) we decided to use an External Skeletal Fixation or ESF. This allowed us to put multiple pins in the small distal fragment but at different angles to avoid each other.

We used two bars and multiple pins. This is called a Type 1b ESF and is biplanar meaning there are two bars but in different angles to the leg. We had to be very careful not to put a pin into the ankle joint. We only had 5mm to play with so precision was needed. Dr Rob managed to get it perfect. Leo’s leg was saved. He is pictured going home with his mum and super nurse Anin.