Knee surveillance for ambulant children with cerebral palsy.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

A majority of ambulant children with cerebral palsy (CP) develop progressive musculoskeletal pathology (MSP) during growth. Fixed flexion deformity at the knee joint (FFDKn) contributes to flexed knee gait and is prone to relapse after index multi-level surgery. This perspective introduces the concept of "knee surveillance" (KS), defined as a repeated systematic assessment of gait and knee range of motion until skeletal maturity. KS aims to detect early FFDKn, allowing for early intervention with minimally invasive techniques such as anterior distal femur hemiepiphysiodesis (ADFH), and reduce the need for higher-risk surgery such as distal femoral extension osteotomy (DFEO) and patellar tendon shortening (PTS).

Methods

Recent literature on the assessment of ambulant

SUBMITTER: Thomason P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11999989 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature