International symposium to focus on clubfoot treatment

The Ponseti Method involves gentle, manual manipulation of the child's foot and application of toe-to-groin plaster casts. The casts are changed weekly after a clinician manipulates softened foot ligaments to gradually achieve near-normal muscle and bone alignment. An essential advantage of the treatment is that it can be taught to nonphysician health care providers, making it an effective treatment in areas with few or no doctors. Nearly 80 percent of children born with clubfoot live in impoverished nations.

In addition to finding ways to take the treatment to those countries, the conference also will address increasing awareness and use of the method in countries with better health care, where surgery is used. Currently, only about half the orthopedists in the United States are actively using the Ponseti Method, which has documented results and peer-reviewed research to show that it is more than 95 percent effective.

The symposium is funded by the NIH (National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and Office of Rare Diseases), the Ponseti International Association, UI Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, the John and Ellen Buchanan Foundation, the Judge William C. Hanson Pediatric Orthopaedic Research Fund, Roger and Bridget Ryan Berman, and John and Willetta Murphy.

Collaborating organizations include the WHO, CDC National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, U.S. Bone and Joint Decade, American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, American Academy of Pediatrics, European, Paediatric Orthopaedic Society, Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America and Shriners Hospitals for Children,

The event sponsors are the UI Carver College of Medicine, UI Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, and the UI College of Public Health.

For more information, visit http://itreoh.org/clubfoot/.