Floating hip: A case report

The floating hip injury refers to a form of serious injury caused by high-energy trauma involving simultaneous fracture of the femur and ipsilateral pelvic bone or acetabulum. Such injury is known to very rare and its treatment guidelines have not been clearly established. Existing studies have classified the injury into two major types according to the forms of injury to the pelvis or acetabulum, and subsequently, another type with injuries to both the pelvic ring and acetabulum was added to the classification. These studies applied surgical or conservative treatments on each type and reported on treatment outcomes and complications. We experienced a case of a 25-year-old female patient who fell from three stories high and sustained simultaneous fracture of the right femoral neck and shaft, along with the pelvic ring and acetabulum. This case could not be classified by previously reported methods and data on treatment outcomes on such cases were unavailable as well. Accordingly, we used screws, metal plates, and intramedullary nails for fixation of the multiple fractures in the femur and pelvis. As a result, we achieved good clinical outcome, which is being reported here along with a literature review.