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Background: Distal forearm fracture is the most common fracture encountered in daily life. Patients with this type of injury suffer from meaningful pain after Emergency Department discharge. Various studies reported that short-arm, below-the-elbow casts perform as well as long-arm, above-the-elbow casts for maintaining a reduction of distal forearm fractures demonstrated with a comparable risk of complication. Consequently, short casts are the commonly used method of immobilization however, short casts carry a potential disadvantage. Objective: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of the next-generation FlexiOH® (Short Arm Immobilizer). Settings and Design: This is a prospective, multicentre, and open-label clinical trial conducted in 5 different sites in India by recruiting a total of 137 subjects who were presented with distal forearm fractures. Materials and M ethods: Vital signs, concomitant medication taken by subjects during the study, X-ray results, and adverse events caused during all three visits were evaluated. Results: Overall patients showed normal vital signs, minimal adverse events, and relatively less concomitant medication consumption during the study period and at the end of the study, 100% healing was noted among all the study participants in the X-ray investigation. This clearly demonstrates the benefits over the conventional methods. Conclusion: For uncomplicated care of fractures and sports injuries of the limbs, FlexiOH® (Short Arm Immobilizer) technology offers more than just reliable immobilization and has advantages over contemporary plaster and cast bandages. This product is the most advanced orthopaedic immobilization technology and has the potential to be used and adopted worldwide. Keywords: FlexiOH®, Distal radius fractures, Short arm immobilizer, Adverse events

Abstract Background Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a common structural deformity of the spine affecting adolescent individuals globally. The disorder is polygenic and is accompanied by the association of various genetic loci. Genetic studies in Chinese and Japanese populations have shown the association of genetic variants of SOX9 with AIS curve severity. However, no genetic study evaluating the association of SRY-Box Transcription Factor 9 (SOX9) variants with AIS predisposition has been conducted in any Indian population. Thus, we aimed to investigate the association of the genetic variants of the SOX9 along with 0.88 Mb upstream region with AIS susceptibility in the population of Northwest India. Methods In total, 113 AIS cases and 500 non-AIS controls were recruited from the population of Northwest India in the study and screened for 155 genetic variants across the SOX9 gene and 0.88 Mb upstream region of the gene using Global Screening Array-24 v3.0 chip (Illumina). The statistical significance of the Bonferroni threshold was set at 0.000322. Result The results showed the association of 11 newly identified variants; rs9302936, rs7210997, rs77736349, rs12940821, rs9302937, rs77447012, rs8071904, rs74898711, rs9900249, rs2430514, and rs1042667 with the AIS susceptibility in the studied population. Only one variant, rs2430514, was inversely associated with AIS in the population, while the ten variants were associated with the AIS risk. Moreover, 47 variants clustered in the gene desert region of the SOX9 gene were associated at a p-value ≤ 0.05. Conclusion The present study is the first to demonstrate the association of SOX9 enhancer locus variants with AIS in any South Asian Indian population. The results are interesting as rs1042667, a 3' untranslated region (UTR) variant in the exon 3 and upstream variants of the SOX9 gene, were associated with AIS susceptibility in the Northwest Indian population. This provides evidence that the variants in the enhancer region of SOX9 might regulate its gene expression, thus leading to AIS pathology and might act as an important gene for AIS susceptibility.