Meta-Analysis
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Nov 18, 2015; 6(10): 838-846
Published online Nov 18, 2015. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v6.i10.838
Operative vs non-operative management of displaced proximal humeral fractures in the elderly: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
Santa Rabi, Nathan Evaniew, Sheila A Sprague, Mohit Bhandari, Gerard P Slobogean
Santa Rabi, Sheila A Sprague, Mohit Bhandari, Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8L 8E7, Canada
Nathan Evaniew, Sheila A Sprague, Mohit Bhandari, Gerard P Slobogean, Division of Orthopedics, Department of Surgery, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8L 8E7, Canada
Gerard P Slobogean, Department of Orthopaedics, University of Maryland School of Medicine, R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, Baltimore, MD 21201, United States
Author contributions: Rabi S acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the article, final approval; Evaniew N acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the article, final approval; Sprague SA interpretation of data, revising the article, final approval; Bhandari M interpretation of data, revising the article, final approval; Slobogean GP conception and design of the study, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the article, final approval.
Supported by In part by a Canada Research Chair to Dr. Bhandari; in part by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute to Dr. Slobogean.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors certify that they, or a member of their immediate families, have no funding or commercial associations (e.g., consultancies, stock ownership, equity interest, patent/licensing arrangements, etc.) that might pose a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted article
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Gerard P Slobogean, MD, MPH, FRCSC, Department of Orthopaedics, University of Maryland School of Medicine, R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, Suite 300, 110 S. Paca Street, Baltimore, MD 21201, United States. gslobogean@umoa.umm.edu
Telephone: +1-410-3286040
Received: February 28, 2015
Peer-review started: March 2, 2015
First decision: June 18, 2015
Revised: July 16, 2015
Accepted: September 25, 2015
Article in press: September 28, 2015
Published online: November 18, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Our systematic review and meta-analysis found a lack of high quality evidence to determine the effects of operative vs non-operative treatment on patient-important outcomes among elderly patients with three- or four-part proximal humeral fractures. There is moderate quality evidence to suggest that there is no difference in functional outcomes between the two treatments.