Bone, growth & fractures

Pediatric Fractures

Broken bones in children, including fractures around the growing knee.

A child’s bone is not a small adult bone. It is more flexible, it heals faster, and it has growth plates — areas of cartilage near the ends of the bone where growth happens. A fracture that involves a growth plate is assessed differently from one that does not.

Growth plates change the assessment

Because growth plates are made of cartilage, they do not show on an X-ray the way bone does, and a fracture through one can be easy to underestimate. The consequences of missing it are about future growth, not just about the healing of the break.

Dr. Green’s fracture practice is concentrated on the knee and the growing skeleton, and it is the second-largest subject in his published research.

How Dr. Green decides between surgery and non-surgical treatment

How Dr. Green treats a child's fracture

Fractures around the growing kneeIncluding tibial spine (tibial eminence) fractures and other fractures about the knee.
Growth-plate assessmentEvaluating whether the growth plate is involved, which changes both treatment and follow-up.

28 peer-reviewed papers on fractures

Dr. Green's published research on fractures in children

Of the papers indexed on PubMed under Dr. Green’s Hospital for Special Surgery affiliation, 28 are on this subject.

See the full publication record

The papers themselves

The 8 most recent of his 28 papers on this subject, indexed on PubMed under his Hospital for Special Surgery affiliation. Each opens on PubMed.

All 28 of his papers on this subject

Patients Dr. Green has treated for this condition

The Hospital for Special Surgery publishes these accounts in its Back in the Game archive. All 5 list Dr. Green as the treating surgeon. Each has its own page here, cited back to hss.edu.