Shibahashi K, et al. - Researchers examined if prognosis in patients with traumatic rib fractures could be improved with surgical rib fixation. Using the Japan Trauma Data Bank, a nationwide trauma registry, they assessed 236,698 registered patients; of these, 37,571 met inclusion criteria for propensity score matching analysis. They analyzed 147 patients who underwent surgical rib fixation and 588 patients as controls and identified that patients with rib fracture display lesser odds of in-hospital mortality in correlation to surgical fixation. For selected patients with a rib fracture, surgical rib fixation seems to be a better modality for the management.