Healing of all types of fractures would take 6 weeks longer in smokers than in non-smokers, according to a study conducted by American researchers.
Smoking would lengthen the healing time of a fracture. This is revealed by the results of a meta-analysis from the University of California presented a few days ago at the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons in Chicago.
A team of American researchers has thus analyzed numerous studies in order to demonstrate a possible association between smoking and healing time as well as the various possible complications after a fracture. They then focused on the most common fractures of the tibia, femur, hip, ankle and humerus in 6,480 patients treated by both surgical and non-surgical treatment. The results of the study show that healing a fracture in patients who smoke would take about 6 weeks longer to heal in a smoker than in a non-smoker.
Conclusion, a smoker will need more than 30 weeks on average to achieve healing of his fracture compared to 24 weeks in a non-smoker. Finally, other figures show that fractures in smokers have a risk multiplied by 2.3 of not “reducing” compared to the same risk in non-smokers. Results which the researchers of the study are delighted with. Thatr, for the author of the study, “the purpose of this study was to directly sensitize smoking patients to the increased risk of complications”.
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