A Clinical Case Report: Closed Extraction of a Broken Distal Piece of the Tibial Intramedullary Nail Remaining for 8 Years

Aim: Closed extraction of a broken distal piece of the intramedullary nail is very challenging. We herein report a case of the broken distal piece of the tibial intramedullary nail remaining for 8 years, which was successfully extracted by closed method using a self-made broken nail extractor.

Case Presentation: A 51-year-old male patient was admitted to our hospital for extraction of the broken distal piece of the tibial intramedullary nail for 8 years. The preoperative X-ray films showed the broken intramedullary nail was cannulated and the outer diameter is 10 mm, larger than the isthmus of the medullary cavity.

Results: After reaming with Φ 11 mm drill, the self-made broken nail extractor was inserted into the medullary cavity from the nail entry point and passed through the canal of the broken nail, and successfully pulled out the broken nail.

Conclusion: Our technique is a simple reproducible alternative that has high extraction success rate for broken distal piece of cannulated intramedullary nails.