Slipped upper femoral epiphysis; characteristic of a hundred cases.

When the British Orthopaedic Association commissioned an investigation of the results of treatment of slipped upper femoral epiphysis, it seemed that this might be based more broadly than upon the results of a particular operation popular at the moment, and that the inevitable delay while patients remained under observation would provide an opportunity of studying the clinical characteristics of the disease, and subsequently relating them to the treatment and its results. Possibly a sound etiological classification might emerge, relating the clinical study of the disease to the notable laboratory results of Harris (1950). To this end a detailed questionnaire was sent out, and the replies were coded on punch cards. Against the obvious advantages of this method must be placed two disadvantages in particular. First, although every question on the forms is relevant, their completion is tedious, so that some questions go unanswered, and this seriously affects the statistical validity of the information collected from them; indeed some returns cannot be used at all, and so the cases are not consecutive. The other most important disadvantage is that the bother of returning a comprehensive form dissuades many from collaborating, or of collaborating for long, and so diminishes the number of cases for investigation. Everyone, except those who live by them, is tired of forms. A hundred straightforward cases have been reviewed. A few oddities that have been excluded are mentioned at the end.