BACKGROUND: The distal forearm buckle fracture in children has no secondary displacement risk, and the literatures have reported that the fracture can be treated with external fixators of plaster cast, palm side plate, splint, brace and bandage, and obtain good effect. But different external fixators have different effects on the functional recovery and viability. OBJECTIVE: To assess the clinical efficacy and safety of splint versus plaster cast for the treatment of distal forearm buckle fracture in Children. METHODS: The Medline database, Embase database, Cochrane Library, CNKI database and CBM database were searched from the database establishment to April 2011 with the computer; the relative conference papers were hand searched; the Important Clinical Trial Register was searched online without limitation of language. Randomized controlled trials and quasi-randomized control trials were selected for quality evaluation, and the Meta-analysis was performed with Revman 5.1. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Two published trials including a total of 314 patients were included, and one randomized controlled trial was evaluated as B scale, another one quasi-randomized control trial was evaluated as C scale. The results demonstrate that no fracture, un-union or re-fracture occurred after treated with splint and plaster case external fixator, and there were no significant differences in pain scores as well as the daily activities of writing, drawing, self-eating and washing; while the early bathing ability of the patients in the splint group was earlier than that in the plaster cast group, and had no significant difference in the advanced bathing ability. The regular exercise participation in the splint group was better than that in the plaster cast group. There were no significant differences in the incidence of adverse events between two groups. The results indicate that the pain score of the patients with distal forearm buckle fracture in children do not improved after treated with splint and plaster cast, but splint fixation is better than plaster cast fixation in maintaining the batching and regular exercise participation ability with good safety. But the well-designed and implement large sample and multi-center randomized controlled trials are needed for validation.

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