RCT Determining Best Treatment for Geriatric Acetabular Fractures

This is a pilot randomized controlled study conducted at Shock Trauma and University of Maryland Medical Center of patients 60 years and older who have sustained an acetabular fracture. Based on the patient's fracture pattern, dome impaction, posterior wall component and femoral head fracture, the patients will be randomized to their treatment arm. One treatment arm will consist of patients who are treated with ORIF alone. The other treatment will undergo ORIF as well as concomitant total hip arthroplasty in the same surgery. Furthermore the functional status evaluation of each patient will be standardized using the WOMAC (Western Ontario McMaster Universities OA index), a lower extremity specific outcome score that has been validated for use in patients of similar age to our cohort study in osteoarthritis or after total hip arthroplasty; and the SF-36 (Short Form-36) which is a validated general health outcome measure that calculates mental and physical subcomponent scores. Patients will also be assessed using the Harris Hip Score, which has been used for patients with post-traumatic arthritis undergoing conversion to total hip arthroplasty. All patients will be followed as standard of care for their follow up visits at 6 month and 1 year. As the patient population at Shock Trauma and University of Maryland Medical Center are all treated by the same orthopaedic group, one dedicated investigator will follow their outcomes. To minimize the risk of bias, I, the individual administering the WOMAC or SF-36 will be blinded to the patient's treatment arm. As the patient will be giving consent for their treatment, they cannot be blinded. Also, the surgeons (and the research coordinator) will know which group the patient is in, but the investigator collecting the data will not.