Background: Pattern of diseases help institutions and governments to know the dominant disease conditions and how to allocate scarce resources. Knowledge of the pattern of orthopedic disease conditions seen and treated in the Rivers State university teaching hospital will help in guiding the repositioning effort of the department/discipline, especially in the light of the new status of the institution as a teaching hospital for teaching, service delivery and research. The aim of this study therefore was to determine the pattern of orthopedic cases seen in the surgery department of the Rivers State university teaching hospital from January 2010 to January 2019.Methods: A descriptive retrospective cross-sectional study was carried out at the emergency room, clinic, operating theatre, and wards of the surgery department of the Rivers State university teaching hospital, using hospital registers. The study was analyzed using the Microsoft excel spreadsheet.Results: There were 2854 orthopedic emergency room cases seen, comprising 621 fractures, 463 lumbar spondylosis/ spondylolisthesis, 392-foot ulcer/sepsis, 375 dislocations, 310 acute osteomyelitis, and 864 osteoarthritis with other conditions. The common orthopedic cases seen in the out-patient clinics in descending order of occurrence were lumbar spondylitis / spondylolisthesis (881), osteoarthritis (655), fractures (560), dislocations (227), etc.Conclusions: Trauma-related disease care constituted the bulk of work of the orthopedic surgeon in our environment in the emergency room, operating theatre and ward admissions, and younger males were more affected.

Background: There is an increasing incidence of gunshot injuries in most countries around the world. Causes of gunshot injuries include herdsmen assault on communities, religious and ethnic riots, student cultism, inter-tribal wars, accidental injuries at funeral ceremonies and politically motivated murder. This study aims to highlight the presentations of gunshot injuries to the extremities in Port Harcourt.Methods: This was a prospective carried out on all patients who presented with gunshot injuries to the extremities at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital during the period of the study. Data on age, gender, anatomical region of the body involved in the injury, nature of the gun used, time between injury and presentation at the hospital were obtained. The information gotten was analyzed and presented in form of tables and figures.Results: Eighty-two subjects with 106 injuries were evaluated. Mean age±SD=28.28±8.04 years. Seventy were males and 12 females (M:F=5.83). Most were unmarried and unemployed. Eighty nine percent presented to the hospital within 6 hours of injury. The AK 47 and locally made pistol were the most used weapons. The left extremity was more affected than the right.Conclusions: This study showed that young adult unemployed males suffered more gunshot wounds than females. Subjects presented early to the hospital. The AK 47 and the local pistol were the weapons mostly used in inflicting these injuries. Most injuries were sustained on the leg.

Background: The knowledge of pattern of illness provides an insight to the health or otherwise of a society, useful for planning and allocation of resources. Fractures are common emergency surgical presentations in our practice, and patients are sometimes unable to pay for the cost of fracture care resulting in a dynamic traffic for alternative care. This study therefore aims at describing the anatomical region and outcome of fractures seen at the Surgery Department of the Rivers State Teaching Hospital, from 2016 to 2020. Materials and Methods: A descriptive retrospective cross-sectional study was carried out in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, using admission and discharge registers to identify all patients with fractures at the Surgery Department of the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital, from 2016 to 2020. The collected data was entered into Excel Spreadsheet, and tabulated. Results: A total of 223 patients had fractures involving different bones. The male to female ratio was 1.9: 1. The mean age of the patients was 40.53, and the age ranges 30 -39 years (38), 40 -49 years (44), and 50 -59 years (33) were more involved in the fracture cases. There were more fractures of the tibia (17.3%) and fibula (16.0%) within the five-year period. Out of the total of 223 patients who had fractures, 159 (71.3%) were admitted to the wards, treated and discharged home. Twenty-five patients (11.2%) signed against medical advice. Thirty-four (15.2%) absconded from admission, while 5 (2.2%) died from complications of the fractures. Conclusion: Fracture is a common surgical emergency in our practice with male preponderance. Most of the patients were treated and discharged. However, about a quarter of the patients left the hospital before treatment could be completed.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is a mononeuropathy arising as a result of compression of the median nerve as it travels through the carpal tunnel at the level of the wrist. The symptoms of this disabling condition include pain or paresthesia in the palmar aspect of the radial 3 and half digits of the hand. This is the case of a 30-year-old man who sustained a penetrating injury to his left wrist following a fall from a height. He presented with pain in his hand and a chronic discharging sinus from a puncture wound on the volar aspect of his left wrist. Wound debridement, extraction of the foreign body and a course of parenteral antibiotics led to resolution of his symptoms.