Abstract
Arthritis may cause mild to moderate pain at rest, joint stiffness and varus or valgus deformity. This may prevent a person from working or prevent them from sitting cross-legged, squatting, climbing the stairs or walking distances. The role of osteotomy have been studied. One hundred cases were performed over a 5 year period and the results were evaluated.
There were 44 men and 56 women. The majority were sedentary workers. The majority of the patients had symptoms for between 1 and 2 years. Pain was mostly located on the medial side and there was no pre-operative feeling of instability. The pre-operative range of movement was between 90–120 degrees in 68% of cases.
In 20 cases, a dome osteotomy was performed. In 80 cases a wedge osteotomy: 75 cases were valgus osteotomy and 5 cases by varus osteotomy. All patients benefited from surgery as regards the relief of pain. Very old and obese patients showed poor results after surgery due to their inability to do the required physiotherapy. The patients having a shorter duration of symptoms showed greater radiographic improvement than those with a longer duration of symptoms.
The patients with 1–10 of postoperative valgus alignment obtained the most pain relief and a good range of motion. Over correction and failure to achieve valgus showed poor results. Overall, 52 % of patients showed good results, 35 % fair and 13% poor results.
The abstracts were prepared by Mr Matt Costa and Mr Ben Ollivere. Correspondence should be addressed to Mr Costa at Clinical Sciences Research Institute, University of Warwick, Clifford Bridge Road, Coventry CV2 2DX, UK.
