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CRAFFT

CRAFFT Storyboard-1.png
Broken wrists are common injuries in children, and the bones often move out of place. In children under 11 years old, there are different ways to treat these injuries because their bones are still growing and can straighten as they heal. Some doctors put the arm in a plaster cast and let the bone heal naturally. Other doctors preferred to do surgery — straightening the bone under anaesthetic and holding it in place with wires or a plate. Both treatments were used across the UK, but no one had properly tested which was better. The CRAFFT Study — short for the Children’s Radius Acute Fracture Fixation Trial — involved 750 children aged 4 to 10 years old. Half received a plaster cast, allowing the broken bone to straighten naturally; the other half had surgery. The study was a randomised trial, meaning each child had an equal chance of receiving either treatment. The CRAFFT Study found that for children under 11 with a broken wrist where the bone has moved out of place, a cast without surgery gives the same long-term results as surgery — with fewer complications and lower costs for families and the NHS. The results were published in The Lancet in 2026.

Theme

Paediatric Trauma

Body Part

Forearm to Wrist

Children’s Radius Acute Fracture Fixation Trial. A multi-centre prospective randomized non- inferiority trial of surgical reduction versus non-surgical casting for displaced distal radius fractures in children.