ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Surg.
Sec. Pediatric Orthopedics
This article is part of the Research TopicFractures and Deformities of the Extremities in Children and Adolescents: Etiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment: 2025View all 31 articles
Clinical Study on Closed Kirschner Wire Prying Reduction for Gartland Type IV Supracondylar Humeral Fractures in Children and Analysis of Typical Cases
Provisionally accepted
- Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture People's Hospital, Hezuo, China
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Objective: To explore the feasibility, safety and clinical efficacy of closed Kirschner wire prying reduction technique in the treatment of Gartland Type IV supracondylar humeral fractures in children. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on the clinical data of 24 children with intraoperatively confirmed Gartland Type IV supracondylar humeral fractures admitted to Gannan Prefecture People's Hospital from January 2018 to May 2025. After the failure of closed manual reduction, all children underwent closed reduction using percutaneous Kirschner wire prying technique, followed by cross or double lateral Kirschner wire fixation. The operation time, reduction success rate, occurrence of complications and postoperative functional recovery were collected. In addition, 2 representative cases were selected to display typical imaging data. Results: Among the 24 children, 22 achieved successful reduction without open surgery; the average operation time was 42 minutes. One child had mild re-displacement after surgery, and one child had transient ulnar nerve palsy. All cases achieved good fracture healing, and the excellent and good rate of Flynn score at the last follow-up was 86.4%. The postoperative imaging of typical cases showed good alignment, and the elbow joint function was completely restored. Conclusion: For children with Gartland Type IV supracondylar humeral fractures, closed Kirschner wire prying reduction technique is a safe and effective minimally invasive reduction method, which may effectively reduce the need for open reduction, and has good clinical application value.
Keywords: Children, Closed fracture reduction, Gartland type IV, Reduction, Supracondylar humeral fracture
Received: 23 Dec 2025; Accepted: 28 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 WU and Peng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yunping Peng
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