Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy in Calcaneal Intraarticular Fractures: Can it Decrease the Soft-tissue Complication Rate?

This study aims to test the hypothesis that postoperative daily hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) decreases soft-tissue complication rate during the operative handling of intra-articular calcaneal fractures. Minor motivations: 1. To evaluate microcirculatory criteria of cutaneous tissue predicting emerging wound healing defects, 2. To identify patients at risk for soft-tissue complication after calcaneal plate osteosynthesis and to determine the optimal time point for operative intervention using these microcirculatory criteria preoperatively, 3. To evaluate the effect of HBOT on postoperative microcirculation, 4. To collect preliminary data to evaluate the economical impact of wound complications, with and without HBOT, 5. To identify a correlation between HBOT with expected limited soft-tissue complication rate and the clinical and radiographic outcome two years after surgery.