Stapling of the knee in juvenile chronic arthritis.

Stapling of the distal medial femur and/or proximal tibia was performed in 17 juvenile chronic arthritic knees with progressive valgus deformity. Correction with less than 5 degrees of residual valgus deformity was obtained in all but two knees. Five knees were stapled for correction of progressive leg length discrepancy. Equality of leg length was obtained in two, slight undercorrection in two, and overcorrection in one patient. Careful supervision of the patient is recommended because of difficulties in using existing methods for growth prediction. The rate of correction differs considerably between patients because of differences in age, type of disease, and medical treatment.