Response of Foot Abduction Braces in Clubfoot Management

Aim: to estimate the results of idiopathic clubfoot treatment using Ponseti method, evaluating the compliance to foot abduction brace protocol. Objectives:1. To estimate the compliance to foot abduction braces of patients, treated for clubfoot using Ponseti method. 2. To estimate the effectiveness of Ponseti method in treating idiopatic clubfoot. 3. To identify Ponseti method treated clubfoot relapse frequency. Methods: A systematic review was conducted using electronic medical database MEDLINE. The planning of overview and data analysis was carried out by following PRISMA requirements of systematic overview. With the help of PubMed search system, publications that are no older than 10 years, written only in English language with full text accessibility, in which the effectiveness of Ponseti method, compliance to foot abduction braces and relapse frequency was estimated, were selected. Results: After carrying out the search in electronic database, 565 publications were discovered and only the ones that meet all the requirements were selected. There were 10 of those. Overall number of subjects in the selected publications – 1220 patients and 1634 feet. The take of subjects in individual publications vary from 35 to 617. Conclusions:1. A low compliance to foot abduction braces remains a significant problem in the treatment of clubfoot. Compliance to braces directly influence the risk of clubfoot relapse. 2. Ponseti method is very effective in correcting clubfoot deformity. 3. The risk of clubfoot relapse highly depends on compliance to foot abduction braces. Relapse risk fluctuates from 3% to 67%