The fate of traumatic anterior dislocation of the shoulder in children.

The cases of twenty-one patients who had open physes and were treated for radiographic evidence of traumatic anterior dislocation of the shoulder at either the Adelaide Childrens Hospital or The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, during a fifteen-year period, were reviewed. All twenty-one patients had had one or more recurrent dislocations. Treatment, which included immobilization in a sling and swathe for as long as six weeks, had no effect on the rate of recurrence.