There is still controversies in the method of surgical treatment for open tibia shaft fractures according to there degree of comminution and extent of soft tissue injury. It is generally accepted as open fracture type I, II can be treated with intramedullary nailing but there are so many suggestions for the type III fractures until now. We tried to evaluate the treatment result for the open tibia shaft fracture treated with intramedullary nailing or external fixatives with respect to seven parameters. time to union, tibial alignment, total number of operations, range of motion of the knee and ankle, pain, presence of infection, and complications. We retrospectively analyzed surgically treated sixty-sever tibia(sixty-six patients), forty-one tibia with extrernal fixatives and twenty-six tibia with intramedullaty nailing, at the Chonbuk University Hospital from January 1988 to December 1993 with mean follow up 32 months.

Traffic accident was the most common cause of fracture. In Gustilos classification, 21 were in type I, 18 were in type II and 28 were in type III. Intramedullary nailing should be a safe alternative to extemal fixation for type I, II and III-A open fractures. External fixatives could be used temporarily or permanently for the type III-B and III-C fractures.