Operative and non-operative treatment of rachitic lower extremity deformities. A long term study with forty-six year average follow-up.

The long term sequelae of rachitic deformities includes degenerative arthritis. Surgery at an early age will be beneficial in preventing degenerative arthritis in children with severe deformities. Of the many metabolic processes involved with Vitamin D, there must be some that vary quantitatively so that a small alteration may produce rickets in one child, go completely unnoticed in another, and persist in still another as a subclinical disease. Furthermore, it is entirely probable that some children then diagnosed as having classical D-deficiency rickets, in fact, would now be found to have D-resistant states.