The History of Surgical Stabilization of Rib Fractures (SSRF)

Responsible for approximately 35% of all trauma-related deaths in the United States, thoracic trauma is one of the leading causes of death among trauma patients. Furthermore, traumatic rib fractures represent the most frequently encountered injury following thoracic trauma with mortality rates ranging from 8% among the elderly to 13% for patients with a flail chest. This manuscript reviews the history of SSRF as well as the contributions of the pioneering surgeons who championed this treatment. Rib fractures are a marker for severe injury as indicated by a recent National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB) retrospective analysis of 564,798 patients with one or more rib fractures. Approximately half of these patients were found to have multiple injuries with worse outcomes observed in patients with polytrauma and flail chest [1]. In addition, age, male gender, injury severity score (ISS), Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), preexistent comorbidities, and number of rib fractures are independently associated with significantly higher rates of morbidity and mortality [1, 2]. Recently, studies have demonstrated surgical stabilization of rib fractures (SSRF) improves outcomes for ventilated as well as non-ventilated patients with flail chest, elderly patients, and select patients with multiple rib fractures without a flail injury or non-flail fracture pattern [2–6]. SSRF applies orthopedic principles of reduction and fixation to restore the architecture of the thoracic skeleton and re-establish normal respiratory physiology and minimize pain [7]. There has been a recent increase in prevalence of SSRF operations, however, SSRF is not a new technique, and progress has been anything but mundane or linear [3, 6]. This manuscript reviews the history of SSRF (Figure 1) as well as the contributions of the pioneering surgeons who championed this treatment. This review was conducted utilizing multiple national experts and a thorough literature review of related SSRF was performed. The sources chosen are considered by the authors to be highly influential and include the first publication for each distinctive method of SSRF.