Surgical therapy for congenital dislocation of the hip in patients who are twelve to thirty-six months old.

Over a ten-year period, fifty-one congenitally dislocated hips in forty-one patients, whose ages ranged from twelve to thirty-six months, required open reduction. Supplemental procedures such as derotational osteotomy, pericapsular (Pemberton) osteotomy, and femoral shortening were performed as necessary. All of the patients have been followed for at least two years (average, 6.1 years). No patient had a significant limp, Trendelenburg gait, or avascular necrosis. Using Severin's classification of radiographic evaluation, twenty-nine hips (57 per cent) were rate as excellent and eighteen hips (35 per cent), as good. In our experience, open reduction of the hip together with correction of acetabular and femoral deformities affords the patient in the one to three-year-old age range an excellent chance of obtaining an anatomically satisfactory hip.