What’s New in Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery 2020

Every month, JBJS publishes a review of the most pertinent and impactful studies published in the orthopaedic literature during the previous year in 13 subspecialties. Click here for a collection of OrthoBuzz summaries of these “What’s New” articles. This month, co-author Kelly Vanderhave, MD selected the 5 most clinically compelling findings from the more than 50 studies summarized in the February 19, 2020 “What’s New in Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery.”

ACL Reconstruction
—ACL reconstruction in pediatric patients continues to receive research attention. A recent review of >560 cases showed that soft-tissue grafts used in this population were twice as likely to fail (13%) as patellar tendon grafts (6%) (p <0.001).¹

Septic Arthritis of the Hip
—A multicenter study identified the following independent risk factors for a repeat surgical procedure after initial arthrotomy for septic arthritis of the hip: presenting CRP of >10 mg/dL and ESR of >40 mm/hr, and the presence of osteomyelitis and MRSA.²

Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis
—A minimum 20-year follow-up of a cohort study evaluating 180 patients after observation, bracing, or surgical management of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis found the following:

• In the observation cohort, 5 of 36 patients underwent a scoliosis surgical procedure as an adult.
• In the bracing cohort, only 1 of 41 patients required an additional spinal surgical procedure.
• In the surgical cohort, 7 of 103 patients required a revision surgical procedure.

At a mean follow-up of 30 years, there were no significant differences in patient-reported outcomes between the 3 cohorts.³

Infection after Spinal Deformity Surgery
—A retrospective study of >600 pediatric patients who underwent spinal deformity surgery identified 2 independent risk factors among 11 cases of deep surgical site infection that occurred >3 months after the procedure:

• Nonidiopathic scoliosis (e.g., neuromuscular, congenital, and syndromic etiologies)
• High volume of crystalloid administered during surgery (mean of 3.3 ±1.2 L in the group with surgical site infections vs 2.4 ±1.0 L in the infected group)

Redosing antibiotics intraoperatively after 3 hours did not significantly influence the risk of infection.⁴

Hip Dislocations in Infants with CP
—Among 11 patients (15 hips) with spastic cerebral palsy whose preoperative mean acetabular index was 29°, surgical hip reconstruction (a combination of open reduction, adductor tenotomy, femoral osteotomy, and/or pelvic osteotomy) yielded the following results at a mean follow-up of 40 months:

• Mean migration index of 7%
• Mean acetabular index of 22°
• No instances of osteonecrosis
• 90% achievement and maintenance of hip reduction in those who underwent open reduction with or without pelvic or femoral osteotomy.⁵

References

1. Ho B, Edmonds EW, Chambers HG, Bastrom TP, Pennock AT. Risk factors for early ACL reconstruction failure in pediatric and adolescent patients: a review of 561 cases. J Pediatr Orthop. 2018 Aug;38(7):388-92.
2. Murphy RF, Plumblee L, Barfield WB, Murphy JS, Fuerstenau N, Spence DD, Kelly DM, Dow MA, Mooney JF 3rd. Septic arthritis of the hip-risk factors associated with secondary surgery. J Am Acad Orthop Surg. 2019 May 1;27(9):321-6.
3. Larson AN, Baky F, Ashraf A, Baghdadi YM, Treder V, Polly DW Jr, Yaszemski MJ. Minimum 20-year health-related quality of life and surgical rates after the treatment of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis. Spine Deform. 2019 May;7(3):417-27.
4. Du JY, Poe-Kochert C, Thompson GH, Son-Hing JP, Hardesty CK, Mistovich RJ. Risk factors for early infection in pediatric spinal deformity surgery: a multivariate analysis. Spine Deform. 2019 May;7(3):410-6.
5. Refakis CA, Baldwin KD, Spiegel DA, Sankar WN. Treatment of the dislocated hip in infants with spasticity. J Pediatr Orthop. 2018 Aug;38(7):345-9.