In 1976, Ramon B. Gustilo and John T. Anderson, two Minnesota-based orthopedic and trauma surgeons, published the seminal study: “Prevention of infection in the treatment of one thousand and twenty-five open fractures of long bones: retrospective and prospective analyses” in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery.
At the time, while all trauma surgeons understood that open fractures required prompt debridement and irrigation, there was no standard measure for how different patterns of injury responded to the range of treatments available in the mid-1970s.
Subscribe to continue reading
- Unlimited access to our content and archive
- Exclusive access to our newsletter
- Join the Conversation! Exclusive access to article comments.
