"How COVID-19 Pandemic Indirectly Affected Orthopedic Patients: A Case Report of a Rescue Treatment For a Proximal Humerus Nonunion"

Abstract

The management of proximal humerus fracture is often challenging for orthopedic surgeons. Most of these fractures, in fact, occurs in old women with poor bone quality. Risk of loosening or nonunion and risk of avascular necrosis of humeral head is high, especially in four-parts fractures. We present a case of a 69-year-old woman with proximal humeral nonunion associated with a humeral head osteonecrosis. The peculiarity of this case is that the patient had no follow-up for 7 months because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the restrictions that resulted. We intend to describe how this social situation forced us to change our strategy of treatment and to discuss how to face the possible consequences in orthopedic practice.