[Reoperations in the management of clubfoot]

The results of 118 operations for club-foot are assessed, of these 57 were reoperations. It is stated that the relapse is most often the consequence of the insufficient primary operation and the relapse and the residual deformity are the more serious the more insufficient was the primary operation. The severity of the deformation is defined first of all by the position of the calcaneus. In milder cases the soft tissue operation only may be successful, in the more severe cases bony operation (Evans' operation in this series of the authors) has also to be performed. After their own primary operations reoperation was in 24 per cent necessary. The number of the bony operations was half of the soft tissue operations. The second and rarer case of the relapses was that the foot proved to be even originally rigid, not redressable, "rebel". First of all in these cases may multiple reoperations be necessary and the transposition of the anterior tibial muscle is also useful. The club-foot with a major dominant adduction deformity of the tarsometatarsal joint is thought to be a separate entity and it is corrected with tarsometatarsal capsulotomies or serial metatarsal osteotomies.