Pseudarthrosis is a false joint that forms after a fracture in which two bone fragments have not consolidated. It is necessary to know that a fracture needs approximately two months of immobilization to form the bone callus. This, among other things, will generate pain.
In general, it is accepted that if bone healing is not carried out in 6-8 months, we are faced with a pseudoarthrosis. The consolidation process can be disturbed by mechanical or biological factors or a combination of both. Delayed union and pseudoarthrosis are two processes that differ in their pathophysiology, prognosis, and treatment. Treatment must be individualized, taking into account all the factors present in the patient, to comprehensively address the problem. The pseudoarthrosis of the long bones can be treated with a single surgical procedure in more than 90% of the cases, patients, with good or excellent results in restoring the mechanical axis and the length of the affected limb, in 80% of the patients. cases.
When a fracture occurs, certain cells in our body immediately migrate to the focus of the injury. This is to clean the area of injured tissue, cleanse the area of any impurities that may exist, and prepare the tissue so that other cells can do the job of joining the bone fragments into which the original bone separated. As the weeks progress, a new bone is formed to join the fragments and strengthen the point of the fracture so that a new separation does not occur.
During a nonunion, cells in the body are poorly programmed: They understand that bone fragments are individual bones and do nothing to try to join them with bone tissue. Sometimes the fracture site is joined, but by a tissue that is flexible, so movement is generated.
This disorder is common in children and when the fractures are not displaced, since in both cases less care of the patient is practiced since normally their evolution is more favorable. The bones most affected are the long bones such as the humerus, femur and tibia.
Other factors that can cause this disorder are open fractures in which there is an added infection, poor immobilization, local circulatory disorders that compromise the local supply of nutrients, malnutrition and vitamin and mineral deficiencies, bone necrosis and the presence of soft tissues between the ends of the bones that interfere with callus formation.
