Osteochondritis Dissecans of the Knee in Children and Adolescents: Our Experience with Transchondral Drilling.

Osteochondritis dissecans(OCD) of the knee is identified with increasing frequency in the adolescent patient. Left untreated, OCD can cause significant impairment and restriction in physical activity and development of osteoarthritis at an early age. The diagnosis of lesions of OCD can be confirmed on plain radiographs. MRI has emerged as the gold standard to evaluate the stability of the lesion and the integrity of the overlying articular cartilage. Treatment of OCD lesions depend on the stability of the lesion. Stable lesions can be treated conservatively by physical activity modification and immobilization. Unstable lesions and stable lesions not responding to conservative measures should be treated surgically. Surgical options range from arthroscopic drilling, either transarticular or extra-articular drilling for stable lesions or salvage procedures such as autologous chondrocyte transplantation (ACT), mosaicplasty to restore joint and cartilage congruency.

Our experience with double metatarsal osteotomy in the treatment of hallux valgus.

Adolescent hallux valgus (HV) is a progressive deformity of adolescent age consisting of metatarsus primus varus and hallux valgus. It has a high recurrence rate after conventional surgical correction. Ten feet in nine patients (two males, seven females) were treated surgically with the Peterson Newman bunion procedure, with a minimum follow-up of one year. During the final follow-up all these patients had no complaints of pain, joint stiffness or limping. Even though the patients had some mild loss of range of movements at the MTPjoints 4-6 degrees compared to preoperative value, it did not cause any functional impairment and all were satisfied with the final outcome. The double ostetomy for treatment ofhallux valgus is technically precise procedure, provides excellent correction and stability and has low rate of recurrence of deformity. We had an excellent outcome in 10 feet in our study without residual deformity or complications.