The Role of Paediatrician in Successful Treatment of Congenital Clubfoot with Ponseti Method

The congenital clubfoot (CCF) treatment is continuously a subject of observations and examinations by many orthopaedic surgeons around the world, mainly because of the large number of failures even today, despite the high level of modern medicine. After mainly surgical treatment approaches, prevailing to about 30 years ago, now comes the time of conservative methods, such as the Ponseti method. Ponseti introduced the conservative approach with plaster casts and subsequent device treatment. Thus, the treatment performed according to his protocol, achieves a total success of 75% only with plaster casts and devices, and with additional surgical minor invasive corrections applied in patients with initial recurrence the treatment success reaches 95% of excellent results. Regardless of the exact postulates which are strictly fulfilled, certain failures, although rare, are developed. The paediatrician is the specialist, who takes care of the child, of its congenital and acquired health problems. It is exactly the paediatrician's assistance in applying the Ponseti method at the CCF treatment, which would increase even more the success in permanent correction of this foot deformity.