Painful non-union of the fibula in football player following fracture of the leg

Abstract

We report the case of a young football player operated on for a middle shaft fracture of the right leg with a Kuntscher nail. After 8 months, when he started to play football again, he suffered from a painful pseudoarthrosis of the region at the transition from the median to the lower third of the fibula. Because of the severity of the pain, and due to the lack of a well-defined and stated surgical option, a subtraction osteotomy was performed in order to remove the cause of the ache. The patient was revisited 3 and 6 months later, and showed complete disappearance of the pain and a full return to sport activities. In light of the good result obtained, we consider the osteotomy operation a reliable and easy-to-perform method in treating non-unions of the fibula.