Slipped capital femoral epiphysis. A prospective study of fixation with a single screw.

Forty-four children (fifty-eight hips) who had a slipped capital femoral epiphysis were managed by in situ pinning with a single cannulated screw. This method of treatment was first used in our institution in 1983. Thirty-one boys and thirteen girls were followed for an average of three years (range, two to six years). There were eight acute slips and fifty chronic slips. Thirty-four patients were black and ten patients were white. The clinical criteria of Heyman and Herndon and the radiographic parameters cited by Boyer et al. were used to grade the results. Fifty-four hips were rated as either excellent or good. Avascular necrosis developed in one patient who had an acute slipped capital femoral epiphysis, but chondrolysis did not occur in any patient. The complications included a subtrochanteric fracture in one patient and an increase in the degree of slippage of the capital femoral epiphysis in two patients.