Quote Originally Posted by Grace
Our Grady had a comminuted mid-diaphyseal spiral fracture of his left femur back in March 2005. Up at MSU Vet School they did a reduction and placement of an interlocking nail.

For the non-medical people, a comminuted fracture is defined as one in which the bone is broken, splintered or crushed into a number of pieces.

The other option offered to us, by our own Vet, was amputation.

Grady has a bunch of bone fragments in his leg, and many of them simply fused to each other during the healing process. He was only 2 when the fracture happened, and the young heal so much better.
Ok the vet school part explains it. They have access to the latest technology and techniques of anything available, and more heads to scratch in search of solutions than the average vet has at their disposal. Where I work we don't have any orthepedic (sp?) specialists so I'm guessing that's why they don't pin really splintered up legs then. We tend to refer out to specialists for really banged up stuff if the owner wants to pursue it further than we can provide.