Distal Radius Fractures and Carpal Instabilities was published in 2019 by Thieme as part of their FESSH IFSSH instructional series. At first glance it combines an impressive expert international authorship including leading figures in contemporary wrist surgery. The book is a sensible volume for this instructional series.
It is a well laid out and easy to read and navigate, with a clear contents page and indexing. It is packed with colour images including intraoperative photography and radiology which are well labelled and of sufficient size and quality to aid understanding and interpretation.
Despite the book’s title, the primary focus is distal radial fractures. Of the 31 chapters, 24 are dedicated to this subject (219 of 280 pages) and only four chapters relate to carpal instability. The distal radius chapters cover an extensive range of topics from radiology, external fixation and open fixation to arthroscopic-assisted and multi-planar fixation and malunion. Usefully a chapter dedicated to paediatric distal radial fractures and growth disturbance is also included. Closed reduction and percutaneous pinning is not afforded its own chapter and is covered in a very limited capacity, which is both surprising and disappointing given its frequency of use for distal radius fracture management.
The few chapters related to carpal instabilities cover open and arthroscopic scapholunate injury repair, lunotriquetral injuries and arthroscopic management of perilunate injuries. This is a good overview; however, these would perhaps be better placed in a separate volume dedicated to this complex area of wrist surgery where a comprehensive appraisal of carpal instability could be given full attention.
In summary, this concise text is well presented and provides a very good overview of distal radius fractures and their management. It draws on the expert knowledge of international and well-regarded senior authors. However, the scarcity of text related to closed reduction and percutaneous pinning is considered a major oversight, and the limited carpal instability content would be best included in a separate volume covering it in more detail.
