Abstracts Posters SICOT-SOF meeting Gothenburg 2010 _2_

Poster
Topic: Paediatrics
Abstract number: 23835
DOES PROLONGED DISLOCATION OF THE HIP JOINT AFFECT THE
STRENGTH OF THE FEMORAL HEAD?
Steven BORLAND 1 , Stanislaw JUNG 2 , Tomaz TOPOLINSKI 3
1 Birmingham Childrens Hospital, Birmingham (UNITED KINGDOM), 2 South Tyneside
Hospital, South Shields (UNITED KINGDOM), 3 University of Technology and
Agriculture, Bydgoszcz (POLAND)
Background - Developmental dislocation of the hip may have effects on the
biomechanical properties of the femoral head. Objectives - To compare the
compressive strength of dislocated hips with undislocated hips.Materials and
methods - We dislocated one hip of ten skeletally immature dogs. We relocated the
hip in half of the dogs at the time of surgery. The hip remained dislocated in the
remainder. We harvested the hips at 8 weeks and performed strength testing,
comparing the dislocated, relocated and undislocated hips. Full ethical approval was
obtained for this study.nResults - We found that while the strengths of the relocated
hips were similar to the undislocated ones, there was a significant loss of strength in
the hips that were dislocated for the whole 8 week experiment. Conclusions -
Prolonged dislocation of the femoral head may lead to significant loss of compressive
strength in skeletally immature individuals. In a context of DDH in a child this may
provide weight to the argument that reduction sooner than later is preferable.
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