Efficacy of neonatal hip examination.

An examination of the ongoing neonatal hip screening program at the Vancouver General and Grace Hospitals in Vancouver, British Columbia, over a 9 1/2 year period revealed that of the 32,480 newborns examined, 321 (9.8 per 1,000 live births) had unstable hips. Treated immediately with abduction splintage, five of these children came to percutaneous adductor tenotomy and hip spica casts. There was one false-negative screening, and there were five children with unidentified acetabular dysplasia who presented within the first year of life. No child came to open reduction of the hip or innominate or femoral osteotomy. A standardized neonatal hip screening program would seem to significantly alter the natural history of the classic congenital dislocation of the hip but also seems unable to effectively screen out acetabular dysplasia.