RESEARCH ARTICLE
Lower Limbs Alignment in Patients with a Unilateral Completely Dislocated Hip
Shinsuke Someya, Motoki Sonohata*, Shuya Ide, Satomi Nagamine, Tomonori Tajima, Masaaki Mawatari
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2016Volume: 10
First Page: 448
Last Page: 456
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-10-448
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001610010448
Article History:
Received Date: 30/11/2015Revision Received Date: 16/05/2016
Acceptance Date: 1/07/2016
Electronic publication date: 26/09/2016
Collection year: 2016
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Background:
Severe hip osteoarthritis is known to lead to secondary osteoarthritis of the knee joint. It is not clear whether contracture or a leg length discrepancy is more important in determining the knee alignment.
Methods:
In this study, 48 hips in 48 patients with a unilateral completely dislocated hip (Crowe IV) were recruited. The patients were divided into two groups (Crowe IVa and IVb). The Crowe IVa group had completely dislocation with psudo-articulation, and the Crowe IVb group had completely dislocation without psudo-articulation. The lower limb alignment was divided into three patterns according to the femorotibial angle; varus (≥176 degrees), neutral(170 to 175 degrees) and valgus(≤169 degrees).
Results:
The combination of valgus alignment on the affected side and varus alignment on the unaffected side, so-called “windswept deformity” was observed in 12.5% of the patients; this included 18.2% and 7.7%, in the Crowe IVa and Crowe IVb groups, respectively. The valgus alignment on the unaffected side, namely “long leg arthropathy,” was found to have occurred in 6.3% of the patients, including 13.6% of the patients in the Crowe IVa group; there were no cases of long “leg arthropathy” in the Crowe IVb group.
Conclusion:
The lower limb alignment on the unaffected side had a tendency to be varus in the Crowe IV patients. The “windswept deformity” was observed in each of the groups; however, “long leg arthropathy” was only found in the Crowe IVa group.
