Short-Term and Medium-Term Radiological and Clinical Assessment of Patients with Symptomatic Flexible Flatfoot Following Subtalar Arthroereisis with Spherus Screw

Andrzej Bobiński; Łukasz Tomczyk; Paweł Reichert; Piotr Morasiewicz

doi:10.3390/jcm12155038

Short-Term and Medium-Term Radiological and Clinical Assessment of Patients with Symptomatic Flexible Flatfoot Following Subtalar Arthroereisis with Spherus Screw

J Clin Med. 2023 Jul 31;12(15):5038. doi: 10.3390/jcm12155038.

Authors

Andrzej Bobiński¹, Łukasz Tomczyk², Paweł Reichert³, Piotr Morasiewicz¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Opole, Witosa 26, 45-401 Opole, Poland.
² Department of Food Safety and Quality Management, Poznan University of Life Sciences, Wojska Polskiego 28, 60-637 Poznan, Poland.
³ Department of Trauma and Hand Surgery, Wroclaw Medical University, Borowska 213, 50-556 Wroclaw, Poland.

Abstract

Background: There have been no reports on arthroereisis screw insertion into the talus in patients with flexible flatfoot. We aimed to conduct a clinical and radiological assessment in patients with symptomatic pes planovalgus deformity treated with a talar screw.

Methods: This study involved a prospective assessment of 27 patients treated surgically for symptomatic flexible flatfoot deformity in the period 2021-2022. The following parameters were assessed in this study: Meary's angle, the Costa-Bartani angle, the calcaneal pitch angle, surgery duration, the length of hospital stay, patient satisfaction, patients' retrospective willingness to consent to the treatment they received, postoperative complications, and the use of analgesics.

Results: The mean follow-up period was 14.76 months. Meary's angle decreased from 18.63° before surgery to 9.39° at follow-up (p = 0.004). The Costa-Bartani angle decreased significantly from 154.66° before surgery to 144.58° after surgery (p = 0.012). The calcaneal pitch angle changed from 16.21° before to 19.74°. Complications were reported in three patients (11.11%). The mean surgery duration was 32 min. The mean hospital stay was 2.2 days. Fourteen patients (51.85%) were highly satisfied with the treatment, and 12 patients (44.44%) were quite satisfied with treatment. Twenty-five (92.59%) of the evaluated patients would choose the same type of treatment again. Six patients (22.22%) needed to use analgesics prior to surgical treatment, whereas none of the patients needed to use them by the final follow-up.

Conclusion: Spherus screw arthroereisis helps improve radiological parameters in patients with flexible flatfoot. We observed good clinical outcomes after treatment with a talar screw, with a majority of patients reporting moderate-to-high levels of satisfaction with treatment. Both short- and medium-term treatment outcomes of pes planovalgus treatment with the use of Spherus screw are good.

Keywords: arthroereisis; clinical; flexible flatfoot; pes planovalgus; radiological; symptomatic flatfoot.

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.