Femoral osteotomy for correction of sequelae of conservative treatment of congenital dislocation of the hip.

After conservative treatment of congenital dislocation of the hip angular deviations may remain uncorrected. Spontaneous correction may occur but if not, severe secondary arthrotic changes may develop. We performed intertrochanteric osteotomies on 81 hips in 67 children, 14 bilateral. All the children were between three and five years of age, except two children who were older than six. In all cases, the anteversion angle was between 45 and 85 degrees, and this was reduced to about 20 degrees. The neck-shaft angle was much less deviated. The results were excellent in 57 (70.4%) hips, good in 16 (19.7%), fair in 5 (6.2%) and poor in 3 (3.7%). After osteotomy, two cases developed coxa vara with secondary overriding trochanters and four cases developed "swan-neck" valgus.