Thirty-seven patients who had a corrective osteotomy for cubitus varus were reviewed. The age at injury ranged 1 to 9 years. Twelve cases were below 3 years of age. Primary fractures were supracondylar fracture of the humerus in 27, diacondylar fracture including physeal lesions in 7, lateral condylar fracture in 1, unknown in 2. Physeal lesions tended to result in severe deformity. Thirty-two patients were operated on while they were of school age.
Closing wedge osteotomy were done in 31 cases, dome osteotomy in 2, curved wedge osteotomy which is a combined procedure of the above two techniques in 3 and others in 1. Closing wedge osteotomy should be the first choice of correction, providing adequate correction with a simple procedure and firm fixation. However, in some cases with more than 30 degrees of correction angle the prominence of the lateral condyle remained and patients complained of cosmetic dissatisfaction. As post operative remodelling of bone is uncertain, prominence of the bone may be corrected at the time of surgery. Thus, we recommend the curved wedge osteotomy in cases who need correction of the varus more than 30 degrees.
