Treatment of Congenital Dislocation of the Hip with the Pavlik Harness

Rowe, Sung Man; Park, Il Sung; Kim, Hyung Soon

Abstract

The congenital dislocation. of the hip is a common congenital disease in the orthopedic field. It is well known that the early diagnosis and effective treatment is very important for the patient to provide a favorable function in the whole life. The Pavlik harness made an important contribution to the treatment of children before standing age. The authors report a clinical experience of 34 patients(35 hips) with congenital dislocation of hip who were treated with Pavlik harness at the Department of Orthopedic Surgery of Chonnam University Hospital. There were total 230 patients(237 hips) diagnosed as congenital dislocation of hip for 10 years from 1978 to 1987. Fifty-one patients(52 hips) of them were treated with Pavlik harness. Only 34 patients(35 hips) were included in this study excluding 17 patients(17 hips) because of inappropriate records or follow-up. The follow-up period ranged from 1 year to 6 years with an average of 2 years and 5 months. The results are as follows ; 1. The most patients were girls, comprising 33 girls and 1 boy. 2. The age of children was 124.6days in average ranging from 13 to 201 days. 3. Of the 35 hips treated with Pavlik harness, satisfactory reduction was obtsined in 30 hips(85.7%). For 5 failed cases, the authors performed closed reduction under the general anesthesia in 3 cases and open reduction in 2 cases. 4. The causes of reduction failure were impossible reduction in 3 cases, nonconcentric reduction in 1 case and repeated redislocation in 1 case. 5. The acetabular and metaphyseal-edge angle improved from the average 33 and 5.8 degrees at the first visit to the average 19.9 and 30.6 degree at the final follow-up (20.7 and 29.2 degrees in normal side). 6. When compared with the value of the 30 hips which were reduced successfully, the initial acetabular angle of 5 failed cases was similar but the metaphyseal-edge angle of them was very low. 7. There was no reduction failure in 27 hips which had metaphyseal-edge angle above 10 degrees. But 5 reduction failures were observed in 8 hips with below âˆ’11 degrees. 8. An avascular necrosis was observed in only one patient. In conclusion, the Pavlik harness proved to be a successful means in treating patients with congenital dislocation of hip under 7 months of age with particularly above âˆ’10 degrees in metaphyseal-edge angle.