USA Health Performs First-In-State Pediatric Hip Implant Procedure

A pediatric orthopaedic surgeon at USA Health is the first provider in Alabama to use a new pediatric hip implant and one of the first in the nation to use the implant to repair a fracture and reposition a bone in the same procedure. In October, Dr. William Cutchen, a pediatric orthopaedic surgeon at USA Health, used the new 3P Pediatric Plating Platform Hip System to repair a rare femoral neck fracture in an adolescent girl’s hip at USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital. The patient also had a deformity in the same hip known as coxa vara due to a previous fracture. The implant allowed Cutchen and the operative team to address the fracture and deformity in one setting. Correcting the deformity also reoriented the fracture to be in a better position to heal. The new hip implant includes a beam screw construct and locking proximal femur plates and comes in infant, child and adolescent sizes. The technology improves precision and offers surgeons several ways to stabilize the bone during both injury repair and correction of the bone shape. One of two pediatric orthopaedic surgeons at USA Health, Cutchen sees patients at the Strada Patient Care Center and performs surgery at Children’s & Women’s Hospital, both in Mobile.