Brief summary:

Background: Rib fractures are one of the most common causes of trauma disabilities and have become an important health issue. Patients usually suffer from severe pain. A rapid and adequate pain control is considered as a priority to improve respiratory mechanics and reduce the risk of pulmonary and systemic complications. So far, there was no gold standard regarding pain control for rib fractures.

Objective: To assess the effect of the newly-designed Prosthorax Thoraxbelt in addition to oral analgesics on pain control of rib fractures

Method: There will be two groups of patients in this study. One group will be the patients with rib fractures who are necessary for in-hospital intense pain control. The other will consist of follow-up patients with rib fractures at an outpatient clinic. The investigators will aim to recruit 30 and 82 patients respectively.

The study has been approved by the hospital research ethics committee.

Arm1: The management and assessment of pain control in rib fracture with non-invasive stabilization: a randomized controlled trial (inpatients)

Arm2: The management and assessment of pain control in rib fracture with non-invasive stabilization: a randomized controlled trial (outpatients)

Primary outcome:

1. inpatient: Visual analog scale (VAS) for 6 hours, 12 hours and 24 hours after the surgery
2. outpatient: Visual analog scale (VAS) for the times at emergency room; 3 days, 3 weeks and 3 months after rib fracture at an outpatient clinic.

Secondary outcome:

• inpatients

  1. The accumulated dose of the inter-venous patient-controlled analgesic drug within 6 hours, 24 hours and 48 hours after the surgery
  2. Complication during the hospital stay
  3. Hospital stay
  4. VAS before discharge
  5. Unanticipated events (ICU admission, a second surgery, death)
  6. VAS during the 1-week, 1-month and 3-month outpatient clinic visit after the surgery
  7. An X-ray examination at an outpatient clinic
  8. Compliance on ThoraxBelt after discharge

• outpatients

  1. Complication during the follow-up period
  2. Unanticipated events (ward admission, ICU admission, a surgery, OHCA)
  3. Compliance on ThoraxBelt after discharge
  4. An X-ray examination at an outpatient clinic

Inclusion Criteria:

• The adult patients with rib fractures (inpatients/outpatients)
• The patients will be assessed to the further admission (inpatients)
• The patients will be assessed to be at follow-up clinic visit (outpatients)

Exclusion Criteria:

• The accident of rib fractures has been occurred over 24 hours. (inpatients/outpatients)
• Refuse to be arranged to the admission (inpatients)
• Refuse to receive the CT scan (inpatients/outpatients)
• Chest wall infection or other diseases (inpatients/outpatients)
• Chest wall infected by rumors (inpatients/outpatients)
• Pregnancy (inpatients/outpatients)
• Further complications arise (inpatients/outpatients)
• Known allergy to ThoraxBelt (inpatients/outpatients)

Currently, we have no plan on sharing the IPD.

The surgeon will not know the patients' group before or during the surgery. The outcome assessor will not know the group during the whole research.