Moderate to severe slipped capital femoral epiphysis leads to premature osteoarthritis resulting from femoroacetabular impingement. We believe surgical correction at the site of deformity through capital reorientation is the best procedure to fully correct the deformity but has traditionally been associated with high rates of osteonecrosis. We describe a modified capital reorientation procedure performed through a surgical dislocation approach. We followed 40 patients for a minimum of 1 year and 3 years from two institutions. No patient developed osteonecrosis or chondrolysis. Slip angle was corrected to 4°to 8°and the mean alpha angle after correction was 40.6°. Articular cartilage damage, full-thickness loss, and delamination were observed at the time of surgery, especially in the stable slips. This technique appears to have an acceptable complication rate and appears reproducible for full correction of moderate to severe slipped capital femoral epiphyses with open physes.

The treatment of slipped capital femoral epiphysis with the modified Dunn procedure allows the restoration of more normal proximal femoral anatomy by complete correction of the slip angle, such that probability of secondary osteoarthritis and femoroacetabular cam impingement may be minimized. The complication rate from this procedure in our series was low, even in the treatment of unstable slipped capital femoral epiphysis, compared with alternative procedures described in the literature for fixation of slipped capital femoral epiphysis.

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