Fractures of the head of the radius in children.

Fractures of the head of the radius with displacement are relatively uncommon in children. During six years, 450 cases of fracture of the radial head have been treated at the Birmingham Accident Hospital. Of these eighty were in patients under the age of eighteen years ; but when cases of fissure fracture and greenstick fracture with minimal deformity were excluded (together with one or two cases occurring in the older children with slight depression of a quadrant of the radial head) there remained only twenty-four cases for consideration. The twenty-four cases fell into two groups, one large and one small, with quite distinct deformities and mechanism : in Group 1 (twenty-two cases) there was lateral tilting of the head by 30 degrees or more, caused by fracture-separation of the epiphvsis or greenstick fracture of the neck with angulation ; in Group 2 (two cases) there was backward rotation of the head through 90 degrees.