Evaluation of the Accuracy of “Ottawa Ankle Rules” for Predicting Fractures in Acute Ankle and Midfoot Injuries

Authors

  • R Dwivedi Lecturer, Department of Orthopaedics, Lumbini Medical College and Teaching Hospital, Palpa
  • SB Ale Lecturer, Department of Orthopaedics, Lumbini Medical College and Teaching Hospital, Palpa

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3126/jucms.v2i2.11166

Keywords:

Ankle sprain, Foot, Ottawa ankle rules

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Twisting injuries of ankle and foot are one of the most common injuries seen in emergency department and are the most common sports injuries. Almost all such cases are investigated by X-rays to rule out fractures, but clinically significant fractures are detected only in a small number of cases (approximately 15%). Ottawa Ankle Rules (OARs) are screening tools, applied in acute ankle and foot injuries to exclude those cases that are not likely to have fractures and thereby reduce the number of unnecessary X-rays. At the same time, all clinically significant fractures are included and not a single clinically significant fracture is missed when OARs are applied properly. This study was conducted to evaluate the accuracy of “Ottawa Ankle Rules” in our setup.

METHODS: This prospective study was conducted in the Emergency and Orthopaedics Department of Lumbini Medical College Teaching Hospital, Palpa. Eighty patients were included in this study. Fifty one patients were in ankle group and 30 patients were in midfoot group. All patients were sent for X-rays after evaluating them according to OARs.

RESULTS: Among 81 cases, 13 clinically significant fractures were detected. Sensitivity of the OARs for detecting fractures was 100%. Specificity of the OARs for detecting fractures was 36.76 % for combined ankle and midfoot zones, 36.36% for the ankle zone, and 37.5% for the midfoot zone. Negative predictive value was calculated as 1(100%). Potential of OARs to reduce unnecessary radiographs was calculated 30.86%.

CONCLUSION: OARs are very accurate and highly sensitive tools for detecting fractures in acute ankle and midfoot injuries. Implementation of these rules would lead to significant reduction in the number of radiographs and thereby reduce the cost of the treatment, radiation exposure and waiting time of patients at hospital.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jucms.v2i2.11166

Journal of Universal College of Medical Sciences (2014) Vol.2(2): 2-5

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.
Abstract
985
PDF
1067

Downloads

Published

2014-09-27

How to Cite

Dwivedi, R., & Ale, S. (2014). Evaluation of the Accuracy of “Ottawa Ankle Rules” for Predicting Fractures in Acute Ankle and Midfoot Injuries. Journal of Universal College of Medical Sciences, 2(2), 2–5. https://doi.org/10.3126/jucms.v2i2.11166

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 2 (2014)

Section

Original Articles

License

Authors have to give the following undertakings along with their article:

  1. I/we declare that this article is original and has not been submitted to another journal for publication.
  2. I/we declare that I/we surrender all the rights to the editor of the journal and if published will be the property of the journal and we will not publish it anywhere else, in full or part, without the permission of the Chief Editor.
  3. Institutional ethical and research committee clearance certificate from the institution where work/research was done, is required to be submitted.
  4. Articles in the Journal are Open Access articles published under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
  5. This license permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and it is not used for commercial purposes.