Surgery Description

Many have asked what was involved in Kelli's surgery.  It was a five hour long, multi-step procedure.  Her doctor wrote a description of it for our local physical therapist, and I copied down what was written.  Then I had to look up the definitions of all the medical terms!  The words in parentheses came from my online research.

The hip incisions are several inches down along the outside of the hip.  There is also a smaller incision higher up. The groin muscle incisions are small (one to two inches) in the groin crease.

1. arthrogram of left hip   (imaging based test that is conducted on joints. An imaging device, usually an x-ray machine is used to take pictures of the joint after a dye or contrast has been injected into it.)

2. valgus derotation shortening osteotomy left proximal femur (super-hip type)
(cutting and removing a portion of the femur and re-positioning the ball of the femur in the hip socket. Sometimes the socket itself must also be worked on in order to have it contain the ball better.)

3. implantation of bone morphogenic protein-II to repair nonunion femoral neck
(to stimulate the production of bone so the portion of her femur that is still cartilage will harden into bone)

4. degas pelvic osteotomy   (A surgical cut is made in the pelvis, above the socket; part of the pelvis is bent down to form more of a cup. The space created in the pelvis is filled with a piece of bone graft and eventually fuses with the child’s bone.  The bone used for this graft was taken from her femur.)

5. release of rectus femoris   (cutting of the tendon to increase flexion of the knee)

6. transfer tensor fascia lata to greater trochanter   (To minimize the symptoms of limp and instability, the anterior ½ of the gluteus maximus was transferred to the part of the femur connecting to the hip bone and sutured under the largest part of the quadriceps femoris muscle. A separate posterior flap was transferred under the primary flap to substitute for the gluteus minimus and capsule. To ensure tight repair, the flaps were attached and tensioned in abduction.)

7. decompression of lateral femoral cutaneous nerve   (to relieve pressure caused by a neuroma, a pinched, or entrapped, nerve)

8. partial osteotomy of iliac wing   (realign/remove a segment of the hip bone. Most often, an osteotmy is performed to realign a deformed bone. The bone is cut with surgical instruments, realigned, and allowed to heal in its new position.)

She also had a plate and screw inserted along her femur to help in grow in the correct position.