Broken wrists heal as well with traditional plaster casts as with metal pins, say researchers

Sometimes the tried and trusted – and less expensive – ways of dealing with fractures can be as beneficial as using the latest technological advance: that, at least, is the message in a paper published today (19 January) in The BMJ.

The paper’s main author is Mathew Costa, who is based at the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences at the University of Oxford, and at the Trauma Unit, Kadoorie Centre, John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

Professor Costa and his colleagues found that using metal K-wires (or ‘pins’) to hold broken wrist bones in place while they heal produces results that are on a par with the option of using the traditional moulded plaster cast.