Table 1.

Overall fracture treatment preferences obtained from national and local institutional patient databases

Source	Content	Results
Medical Records of one centre in Hong Kong between 1985 and 199515	≤ 16 years, hospitalized for fracture treatment, 6493 fractures in 6389 children	– No significant change in the overall rate of limb fractures requiring hospitalization – Closed reduction and percutaneous fixation increased from 3% to 22% and open reduction decreased from 29% to 14% – Distal radius, supracondylar humerus and forearm shaft fractures had the greatest change in treatment pattern
National Hospital Discharge Register data in Finland between 1997 and 200616	< 18 years, hospitalized for fracture treatment, 37271 fractures	– Overall rate of primary fracture surgery increased by 20% – Rates of surgery for upper limb, lower limb and axial fractures increased by 28%, 4% and 11%, respectively – Rate of forearm fracture surgery increased by 62% – Rate of closed reduction and casting did not change significantly
Patient Database of one centre in Norway, between 2004 and 200717	< 16 years, hospitalized for fracture treatment, 964 fractures	– 61% of the fractures were treated by closed reduction and casting, 31% by percutaneous fixation including pinning and nailing and 8% by internal fixation