Acetabular Fracture, What Causes This? - Dr. Mullis (VIDEO)

Dr. Mullis:
That is like a pelvis injury, usually high energy. Many times it’s what we all a dashboard injury. So somebody sitting in the car and it’s a high-energy collision, and the dashboard then runs into the patient’s knee and it can drive the ball part of the ball-and-socket joint out through the back of what we call the acetabulum.

And we call that a fractured dislocation, meaning it breaks the acetabulum, but also the femoral head, or ball, is dislocated out of its normal position, and so that’s the most common acetabulum fracture. There are other mechanisms, but that’s the most common.

About Dr. Mullis, M.D.:
Dr. Brian Mullis, M.D., is the Chief of Orthopaedic Trauma Service and Assistant Professor of Clinical Orthopaedics in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine. He has a special clinical interest in orthopaedic trauma and post-traumatic complications with a focus on pelvis and acetabulum fractures, peri-articular fractures of both upper and lower extremity, bone healing, nonunions, malunions, deformity and post-traumatic infections.

Visit Dr. Mullis at Indiana University School of Medicine

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• Bones & Joints