Arthroscopic assisted versus open non-vascularized bone grafting in delayed union and nonunion of the scaphoid: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Delayed union and nonunion of the scaphoid is a common complication often requiring surgical reconstruction and bone grafting. Our goal was to systematically assess the healing time and clinical outcomes following arthroscopic-assisted versus open non-vascularized bone grafting of the scaphoid. METHODS: A comprehensive search of the MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature), and Cochrane Central databases was completed from inception to September 2023. We included randomized trials and observational studies that reported outcomes following scaphoid delayed union/nonunion comparing arthroscopic-assisted vs. open non-vascularized bone grafting. Two reviewers independently extracted data and assessed the risk of bias. One investigator assessed certainty of evidence and a senior investigator confirmed the assessment. We pooled effects using random-effects models, when possible, for all outcomes reported by more than 1 study. RESULTS: Overall, 26 studies and 822 patients were included in the study. Very low certainty evidence demonstrated that arthroscopic-assisted surgery may decrease healing time compared to open surgery (weighted mean difference [WMD] -7.8 weeks; 95%CI -12.8 to -2.8). Arthroscopic bone grafting did not result in an improvement in union rate (relative risk 1.01; 95%CI 0.9 to 1.09). The pooled data in arthroscopic graft group showed mean time to union of 11.4 weeks (95%CI: 10.4 to 12.5) with union rate of 95% (95%CI 91-98%). A single comparative study reported very low certainty evidence that arthroscopy-assisted vs. open surgery may not have an effect on pain relief (MD 0 cm, 95%CI -0.4 to 0.5 on VAS 10 cm for pain) or improving function (MD -1.2, 95% CI -4.8 to 2.3 on 100 points DASH). CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS: Our results suggest that arthroscopic-assisted non-vascularized bone grafting may be associated with improved average weeks to heal in comparison with open surgery for scaphoid delayed union/nonunion reconstruction with overall comparable union rates. There is insufficient evidence to assess the effects of arthroscopic-assisted reconstruction on union rate, time to union, and patient-reported outcomes in patients with other important nonunion characteristics such as established humpback deformity.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.007 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".