The Seinsheimer classification is a system of categorizing
subtrochanteric hip fracture
A hip fracture is a break that occurs in the upper part of the femur (thigh bone), at the femoral neck or (rarely) the femoral head. Symptoms may include pain around the hip, particularly with movement, and shortening of the leg. Usually ...
s based on the
fracture
Fracture is the appearance of a crack or complete separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress (mechanics), stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacemen ...
pattern of the proximal
femoral shaft. The classification was developed by
Frank Seinsheimer III in 1978. In the published work, fifty-six patients were treated for subtrochanteric fractures, and their fractures were "classified according to the number of major fragments and the locations and shapes of the fracture lines." This system of classification was used to assess the correlation between type of fracture and success of treatment.
A later study of 50 subtrochanteric fractures, which were assessed using the Seinsheimer classification, criticized the classification system for having poor
inter-rater reliability
In statistics, inter-rater reliability (also called by various similar names, such as inter-rater agreement, inter-rater concordance, inter-observer reliability, inter-coder reliability, and so on) is the degree of agreement among independent obse ...
. They noted that "Earlier studies of pertrochanteric
icand femoral neck fractures show that the use of classification systems is often difficult, with low agreement (Frandsen et al. 1988, Andersen et al. 1990, Gehrchen et al. 1993). The results of these studies accord with the low level of interobserver agreement in our study. A total agreement of 26% or at the best 60% is not acceptable." A further study published in 2014 assessed four subtrochanteric fracture classification systems, including the Seinsheimer system, and concluded that "the four subtrochanteric classification systems which we assessed were not found to be sufficiently reproducible to be of any significant value in clinical practice."
[Guyver, P. M., et al]
"Is there any purpose in classifying subtrochanteric fractures? The reproducibility of four classification systems."
European Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Traumatology 24.4 (2014): 513-518.
Classification
See also
*
Femoral fracture
A femoral fracture is a bone fracture that involves the femur. They are typically sustained in high-impact trauma, such as car crashes, due to the large amount of force needed to break the bone. Fractures of the diaphysis, or middle of the femur ...
References
External links
Wheeless Online
Hip fracture classifications
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