Onuoha et. al. BUMJ 2020 3(2):28-33 https://doi.org/10.38029/bumj.v3i2.44 Correspondence: Onuoha, Kenechukwu M. Department of Surgery, Babcock University Teaching Hospital, Ilishan, Nigeria +2348034128159; mckelng@yahoo.com © BUMJ. 2020 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Management of calcaneal fractures: a case series Onuoha KM 1 , Ajaero GC 1 , Orji MO 1 , Salami OF 1 , Omotola OE 1 1 Deprtment of Surgery, Babcock University Teaching Hospital, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, Nigeria Submitted: 3 rd June 2020 Accepted: 10 th August 2020 Published: 30 th December 2020 Background Calcaneal fractures are rare and account for about 1 – 2% of all fractures occurring in the human body and 60% of all tarsal bones’ injuries (1). It is mostly associated with high energy axial load applied to the heel which drives the talus downward onto the calcaneus. Such trauma includes falls from a height or head-on collision motor vehicle accidents. Due to the high energy of the trauma, soft tissues are commonly involved with 50% presenting with the combined lesion (2). Calcaneal fractures can be intra-articular or extra- articular. Intra-articular fractures account for approximately 70% of calcaneal fractures and are more challenging to manage with the worse outcomes. The Calcaneus, also called the heel bone, is a large bone that forms the foundation of the rear part of the foot (3). Patients that sustain calcaneal fractures commonly present with pain over the heel, inability to weight bear on the affected foot with limited mobility, and an antalgic gait. There may be swelling, redness, and hematoma over the area. Mondor’s Sign, which occurs when the hematoma extends to the sole and described as pathognomonic for calcaneal fractures (4). The heel may become edematous and widened as a result of the displacement of the calcaneal border. The soft tissues must be evaluated as injury to the soft tissue has been associated with significant complications (5, 6). During CASE REPORT OPEN ACCESS Abstract Background Untreated or inappropriately treated, calcaneal fractures can result in arthritis, chronic ankle pain, and ankle deformity which can significantly impact the lifestyle of affected patients. Even though calcaneal fractures are common among those with multiple injuries, they can easily be missed, and not treating them would significantly impact on the patient negatively. It is therefore important a high index of suspicion is made for this injury among patients involved in high-energy trauma. Case Presentation This article is a retrospective recall of the six patients seen with calcaneal fractures that were treated in our hospital between 2010 and 2018, they were mainly multiply injured and the advanced trauma life support (ATLS) protocol helped to delineate these fractures, the use of modern-day operative and non-operative methods of management and rehabilitation were employed. Discussion and conclusion Calcaneal fractures are mostly associated with high-energy trauma which includes falls from heights or vehicle accidents with almost 50% soft tissue involvement. This is similar to cases presented in this paper as all the patients were either involved in road traffic accidents or had fallen from a height, however, soft tissue destruction manifesting as open fractures were absent in our series. Calcaneal fractures are rare and can easily be missed as patients may present as multiply injured. Prompt and adequate Rehabilitation is important to improve function. Keywords: Calcaneal fracture, Intra-articular fractures, Heel bone fractures, Tarsal bone injuries, Trauma.