The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Vol 65, Issue 7 985-991, Copyright © 1983 by Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Inc
Failure of treatment of ununited fractures of the carpal scaphoid. The role of non-compliance
WC Kim, JW Shaffer and C Idzikowski
We studied the results in thirty patients who had grafting of an ununited
fracture of the carpal scaphoid bone. Psychiatric evaluations revealed that
the thirteen patients who had a non-union of the initial scaphoid bone
graft had significant psychiatric problems, whereas the seventeen patients
in whom the non-union had healed after initial bone-grafting of the
scaphoid did not have psychiatric abnormalities. Technically successful
surgical revisions in the first group of patients did not result in
significant clinical improvement. We concluded that most failures of the
bone grafts were related to non-compliance on the part of the patient and
that some of the operations could have been avoided if the underlying
psychiatric problems had been recognized preoperatively.