prevalence of clubfoot in the neonates who were referred to the emergency department of Mofid children hospital

ABSTRACT

Club-foot is one of the most prevalent congenital anomalies of the lower extremities. Since there is no epidemiologic study on the prevalence of this disease in Iran, we decided to assess it in a sample population in Tehran. We assessed all neonates who were referred to the emergency department of mofid children hospital between October 2007 and November 2008, due to a paediatric emergency problem. None of the patients had chief complaints of lower extremity deformity. During this time period [13 months], we could examine 682 neonates. None of the parents of these neonates had complaints regarding anomaly of lower extremities of their neonates at the time of the emergency referral. Of them, 371[54%] were female and 311 [46%] were male. The age of the mother at the time of pregnancy was < 20 yr in 124 [18%] neonates, between 20 and 35 yr in 472[69%] neonates and > 35 yr in 86 [13%] neonates. There was a previous history of clubfoot in the siblings of one of the neonates who was under orthopaedic treatment. Among all these neonates, we found two cases of clubfoot [0.3%], with bilateral involvement. In one of these cases, the older sibling also had clubfoot. The incidence of clubfoot has been reported between 0.39 and 6 cases in 1000live birth in the literature. In the present study, we found a prevalence of 0.3 for clubfoot in every 1000 neonates