Background:

Plain cotton compressed into sheets is the most commonly used padding material.

Utility of a novel padding material using outlast technology was evaluated in this study.

Methods:

100 patients were divided into 2 groups. Routine padding material was used in 50 patients and outlast phase change material was used in the other 50. The two groups were then evaluated on various parameters related to patient comfort.

Results:

The outlast padding material performed significantly better than the routine padding material in all the measured parameters.

Conclusion:

A larger sample size, objective parameters and using patient as his own control (bilateral fractures) are needed to improve the quality of the study.