Evaluation of clinical efficacy and safety of the Ilizarov apparatus for external fixation (literature review)

Purpose A retrospective analysis of clinical efficacy and safety of using the external fixation apparatus of G.A. Ilizarov’s design. Materials and methods Analysis and evaluation of clinical data was performed using 107 literary sources. 4.200 clinical cases were studied to evaluate effectiveness, and 6.274 cases to assess safety. Results The analysis revealed a high clinical efficacy of using the Ilizarov apparatus for external fixation (various assemblies) in solving a wide range of practical problems in the field of traumatology and orthopedics. According to the results of the study, its high clinical treatment effectiveness was confirmed both on the use of the method in general (about 95 % of positive outcomes), and in specific nosological groups of patients (not lower than 90 % of positive outcomes). After having assessed the available data on the safety in the application of the Ilizarov apparatus for external fixation (various assemblies), we can conclude that the rates of adverse events, recorded in the literature analyzed, can be considered acceptable. Among all those events, the events classified as adverse effects of the product amounted to 17.03 % (5 ÷ 95 % CI: 16.11 ÷ 17.97 %).