Evaluation of the Accuracy of “Ottawa Ankle Rules” for Predicting Fractures in Acute Ankle and Midfoot Injuries

INTRODUCTION: Twisting injuries of ankle and foot are one of the most common injuries seen in emergency department and are the most common sports injuries. Almost all such cases are investigated by X-rays to rule out fractures, but clinically significant fractures are detected only in a small number of cases (approximately 15%). Ottawa Ankle Rules (OARs) are screening tools, applied in acute ankle and foot injuries to exclude those cases that are not likely to have fractures and thereby reduce the number of unnecessary X-rays. At the same time, all clinically significant fractures are included and not a single clinically significant fracture is missed when OARs are applied properly. This study was conducted to evaluate the accuracy of “Ottawa Ankle Rules” in our setup.