**1. Introduction**

Acetabular fractures are one of the rare injuries. The incidence of acetabular fracture is about 3 per 1 lakh population. There are bimodular pattern of occurrence of acetabular fractures. In elderly patients, it is usually produced by low energy trauma and in younger patients it is produced by high energy trauma. The pattern of fracture is mainly determined by the

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

position of femoral head at the time of injury, force vector and quality of bone .This fracture are usually associated visceral and neurovascular injuries. In this chapter, we are going to describe the clinical feature and classification of acetabular fractures.

acetabular fractures needed lower transfusion rate than with pelvic fractures. But in yet another study out of 16 acetabular fracture, 2 fracture required embolization compared to 9 of the 100 pelvic fractures. The transverse and posterior wall fractures often require blood transfusion. Both column fractures, T-shaped fracture, fracture with extension into the sciatic notch and those fracture associated with pelvic injury are more likely to have greater blood loss and may

Clinical and Radiological Assessment of Acetabular Fracture

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76114

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Accurate classification of acetabular injury is important for its proper treatment. Various classification system have been suggested because of the complex anatomy of the acetabulum. Judet and Letournel classification is the most widely accepted and commonly used classification. Radiograph provides most of the essential information for classifying acetabular fractures. Computerized tomography with 3D reconstruction imaging is also useful in classifying

The acetabulum is an incomplete hemispherical socket with an inverted horseshoe shaped articular surface surrounding the non-articular cotyloid fossa. The articular socket is composed of and supported by two lamda [λ] shaped columns as described by Judet and Letournel (**Figure 1**). The anterior and posterior walls are extensions of the respective column and forms the cup of the acetabulum [16–18]. The anterior column is longer and larger and composed of

**Figure 1.** Columns of acetabulum. Blue—Posterior column. Green—Anterior column. Red—Sciatic buttress.

need blood transfusion [11].

**3. Radiological anatomy**

acetabular fractures [12–16].
