Now, non-surgical method to treat club foot

Bengaluru: Club foot, a congenital deformity involving one foot or both in which the affected foot appears to have been rotated internally at the ankle, can be treated without surgery at government-run Indira Gandhi Hospital free of cost.

The hospital has since 2010 treated 728 Club foot cases of children and infants. “We have treated 728 cases non-surgically using a unique method known as the Ponseti Method,” says Dr Rudraprasad, Associate Professor of Orthopedic at Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health which is also the nodal centre for training of doctors to treat children with Club Foot.

The Institute, on an average witnesses 30 babies with club foot. “Club foot is a birth anomaly affecting the feet of the baby. Approximately five to seven infants in every 1,000 live births will have Club foot, making it one of the more common congenital (present at birth) foot deformities. It may be because of a genetic problem caused because of chromosomal abnormality but most of the babies that come to us come without any genetic abnormality,” says Dr Rudraprasad who adds that Ponseti method is the only simple non-surgical method to treat this deformity effectively. “It involves serial plaster castings which are done on a weekly interval in a conventional method. The baby would require 6-7 plasters in the beginning if they come early but at the end of the cast the condition may require a small outpatient surgical procedure which is done under local anesthesia,” he says.

On an average the procedure would cost patients somewhere around Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000, but at the Institute it is done free of cost. “The surgery is free of cost and includes braces, plaster material, doctors. The counselling and education of parents is done by an NGO called Cureclubfootindia,” says Dr Rudraprasad. The treatment is also done in Victoria Hospital, St John’s Hospital, Bowring and IGICH.