RT Journal
A1 Haidukewych, George J.
T1 Results of Internal Fixation of Pauwels Type-3 Vertical Femoral Neck Fractures
JF The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery
JO The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery
YR 2009
FD February 1
VO 91
IS 2
SP 491
OP 491
DO 
UL http://dx.doi.org/
AB 
I appreciate Dr. Parker's comments on the difficulty of measuring the Pauwels angle and understand the lack of literature on the interobserver reliability of the classification. I am concerned, however, that Dr. Parker feels that our data are not clinically relevant. I must point out that our series is the largest contemporary multicenter study of the "worst-case scenario," that is, the most vertical femoral neck fractures treated with modern internal fixation devices. We chose to study these since we thought that it is relatively simple to determine the verticality of angles of >70° compared with the lower shear angles of 30° or 40°, for example. Also, this cohort would be most likely to elucidate any differences in performance of various fixation strategies since, theoretically, these fractures would experience the most shear.