Essential fracture and orthopaedic equipment lists in low resource settings: consensus derived by survey of experts in Africa.

INTRODUCTION: Low/middle-income countries (LMICs) have a growing need for trauma and orthopaedic (T&O) surgical interventions but lack surgical resources. Part of this is due to the high amount of road traffic accidents in LMICs. We aimed to develop recommendations for an essential list of equipment for three different levels of care providers. METHODS: The Delphi method was used to achieve consensus on essential and desirable T&O equipment for LMICs. Twenty experts with T&O experience from LMICs underwent two rounds of questionnaires. Feedback was given after each round of questionnaires. The first round of questionnaire consisted of 45 items graded on a Likert scale with the second round consisting of 50 items. We used an electronic questionnaire to collect our data for three different levels of care: non-operative-based provider, specialist provider with operative fracture care and tertiary provider with operative fracture care and orthopaedics. RESULTS: After two rounds of questionnaires, recommendations for each level of care in LMICs included 4 essential equipment items for non-operative-based providers; 27 essential equipment items for specialist providers with operative fracture care and 46 essential equipment items for tertiary providers with operative fracture care and orthopaedic care. CONCLUSION: These recommendations can facilitate in planning of appropriate equipment required in an institution which in turn has the potential to improve the capacity and quality of T&O care in LMICs. The essential equipment lists provided here can help direct where funding for equipment should be targeted. Our recommendations can help with planning and organising national T&O care in LMICs to achieve appropriate capacity at all relevant levels of care.

[About the treatment of battlefield injuries of the musculoskeletal system with the help of new "Rod field package"].

Injuries of the musculoskeletal system are at 60% of all battlefield injures and take first place in modern military conflicts. The main antishock measures are: pain management, emergency bleeding control, bone fragment positioning and fracture fixation. Specialist of the centre of traumatology and orthopaedics of the Burdenko General Military Clinical Hospital in cooperation with specialists of department of battlefield surgery of Mandryka Clinical Research and Training Medical Centre analysed the most effective domestic and foreign external fixators and developed Rod field package (RFP). The above mentioned researched had two stages. On the first (analytical) stage specialists formulated requirements for idea rod field external fixator. On the second (experimental) stage tests with the help of plastic models of long bones were carried out. The performed analysis showed, that installation of the external fixator is easy and fast, the external fixator is light and has capabilities for 3D bone fragment positioning and fracture fixation, the external fixator is radiotransparent. Implementation of this package into the clinical practice of delivery of battlefield emergency surgical care may improve results of treatment.