Abstract

The clinical treatment of club foot uses various approaches. This meta-analysis was done to evaluate the efficacy of various conservative treatments. Various studies were collected and odd’s ratio (ORs) with the corresponding confidence intervals were calculated for the evaluating the results, relapses and requirement for major surgery. A meta-analysis of 1400 cases from 9 relevant studies were performed. The combined odd’s ratio suggested that significantly more fair and poor results were achieved and major surgery was required more often when using non Ponsetti’s methods where the odd’s ratio was 3.12 and 7.26 respectively, but there was not any considerable difference detected in the occurrence of relapse, where the odd’s ratio being 1.25. The collective odd’s ratio evaluation had shown a significantly higher rate of fair and poor results, relapse and requirement of surgery while using Kite’s method while using Ponseti’s method where the odd’s ratio being, 3.52, 2.47, and 3.06 respectively. But there wasn’t any considerable difference between French method and Ponseti’s method, where the odd’s ratio was 3.03, 2.27, and 3.04 respectively.The analysis of all the methods states that the Ponseti’s method is safe and efficient for the conservative treatment of clubfoot and it decreases the number of surgical interventions required for the treatment. It is the first choice conservative treatment for the idiopathic clubfoot.

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