ArticleBMC musculoskeletal disorders2023
Sick leave length and the costs of operatively and conservatively treated distal radius fractures in the working age population: a retrospective cohort study.
Article in BMC musculoskeletal disorders, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed, 3 citations in OpenAlex.
- Return to work after volar or combined plating of type C distal radius fracture: a secondary analysis of a randomised clinical trial.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2025Trial
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAmong the working population, a transient loss of working ability due to distal radius fracture (DRF) has a societal impact in terms of sick leave. Non-operative cast immobilization is the most common treatment option for DRF. However, these fractures are increasingly treated operatively. This retrospective cohort study of patients aged 20-64 with DRF compares the effects of different treatment strategies on sick leave length and overall cost of treatment.
methodsMultivariable regression analysis was used with treatment modality as an exposure and sick leave length as an outcome. Sick leave data were obtained from a national register. Costs were evaluated by adding the direct cost of the treatment modality to the mean cost of sick leave per patient in different treatment groups.
resultsOf 614 working-age patients with a DRF who were treated at a tertiary hospital in Finland between January 2013 and December 2014, 521 were primarily treated non-operatively with cast immobilization and 93 were primarily operated. Of the primarily non-operatively treated patients, 48 were operated during follow-up. The mean follow-up was 5 years. The median time lost from work after DRF was 55 days (7.9 weeks), and the separated medians by treatment modality were 49 (7 weeks) and 70 days (10 weeks) for conservative and operative treatment, respectively. Multivariable linear regression analyses were performed for those patients who had sick leave (n = 292). Regression analysis also showed that operative treatment correlates with longer sick leave.
conclusionsOperative treatment of distal radius fracture led more often to longer time lost from work than conservative treatment. Moreover, due to longer sick leave and the costs of the operation itself, operative treatment is over two times more expensive than conservative treatment.
trial registrationretrospectively registered.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.