Compression devices, using metal plates and screws, draw bone pieces into a tight alignment in which primary healing can occur. Bone screws alone may be enough to fix an oblique or spiral fracture as it heals. Intramedullary nails, or pins, inserted into the marrow cavity can help stabilize fractured long bones in young equine patients.
Transfixation devices, using pins inserted horizontally elsewhere through the broken leg to hold bone parts in place, protrude through the skin and are supported by external casts.
Given the talented professionals, modern materials and innovative techniques available in orthopedic clinics around the country, broken legs are hardly the death sentences they once were for horses.
Clean, transverse breaks in young bones have the best outlook for recovery, but some amazingly messy comminuted and compound fractures have been reconstructed by skilled equine surgeons. The salvation does not come cheaply, of course, and the recuperation period can present one complication after another. But you can be assured that bone will make the best of any opportunity it's offered to repair its wounds.
This article originally appeared in the May 1998 issue of EQUUS magazine.
