Pelvic obliquity and the unstable hip after poliomyelitis.

Of 400 patients with disabilities resulting from poliomyelitis, seen at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre between June 1976 and April 1978, 32 required surgical correction of abduction contracture on one side associated with severe pelvic obliquity of infrapelvic origin causing the opposite “high” hip to be unstable. Rather than directing treatment toward the unstable hip initially, the more appropriate management was to release the abduction contracture.completely. The obliquity was thereby corrected and, often, the previously unstable hip became functionally stable and required no further operative treatment.