Hip salvage surgery in cerebral palsy cases: a systematic review

Imbalance and muscle spasticity, in association with coxa valga and persistent femoral anteversion, compromises hip development in cases of cerebral palsy and may result in chronic pain and even dislocation. Some of these hips undergo salvage surgery because of the severe impact of their abnormalities in these patients' quality of life. We conducted a systematic review of the literature to compare the results from the main hip salvage techniques applied to these individuals. The literature search focused on studies that evaluated results from hip salvage surgery in cases of cerebral palsy, published from 1970 to 2011, which are present in the Embase, Medline, PubMed, Cochrane Library and SciELO databases. Although the results were not statistically comparable, this systematic review demonstrates that hip salvage surgery should be indicated after individual evaluation on each patient, due to the wide spectrum of presentations of cerebral palsy. Therefore, it seems that no surgical technique is superior to any other. Rather, there are different indications.