Pediatric trauma, or physical injury, is the most common cause of death and disability in children. One in four children are estimated to sustain an injury requiring medical care each year. The widespread and substantial impacts of these injuries highlight the need to provide more efficient care, better management and to prevent future injury. Pediatric orthopaedic trauma includes any musculoskeletal injury, like a fracture or broken bone, that occurs in an infant, child or adolescent less than 18 years old. Since these patients are still growing and developing, caring for these injuries requires specialized knowledge, close follow-up and careful management.
We are developing a registry, or database, called Global PedORTHO, to collect information on pediatric orthopaedic trauma around the world with the goal of improving the quality and efficiency of trauma outcomes research. Once established, the registry will be a comprehensive source of data for use in future studies to compare various treatments and management strategies and will allow us to identify factors associated with injury and risk-taking behaviour. This registry will help to provide guidance for clinicians and policymakers when assessing treatments and patient outcomes.
Global PedORTHO will expand and build off a current registry, called AO PedORTHO, by collecting data on seven additional types of fractures and following patients until skeletal maturity (when they stop growing). This will help us better understand how these fractures, and their treatment, effect growth and development. The fractures that will be included in our registry are those with significant controversy in how they are managed in children but are not currently captured in the AO PedORTHO registry. Because we want our registry to be representative and inclusive of all patients who suffer these injuries, we will include sites from around the world.