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.