Inflammatory Factors Before and After Orthopedic Surgery in Patients with Fractures Following Trauma

Inflammatory factors are indicators of complications such as infection following trauma fracture healing that is necessary to identify the process of changes after surgery and the factors affecting it. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the extent of inflammatory factors before and after surgery in patients with fractures following trauma.

This prospective study was performed on 200 patients with fractures requiring surgery. After obtaining patient satisfaction and recording demographic information, the white blood cells (WBC) count, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and serum levels of C‑reactive protein (CRP) changes before and during the first 6 weeks of the postoperative period were recorded. Repeated measure ANOVA and mixed ANOVA tests were used to compare the data.

According to our results, the day after surgery all inflammatory factors including WBC, ESR, and CRP increased significantly, and 2 weeks after surgery serum levels of WBC and CRP decreased, while ESR serum levels were still high and decreased from the 4th week.

The results of this study showed the deviation of inflammation factors from the normal ranges and increase and decrease after surgery can indicate the presence of complications such as infection after surgery. Since CRP changes were more sensitive than ESR, it is recommended to check WBC and CRP changes to evaluate infection because ESR was elevated for a longer duration.