Systematic review of flexible flatfoot treatments. Retrospective analysis (1977-2011)

Abstract

Background: At first, with this systematic search we intended to contrast the different orthopedictreatments used for flexible flatfoot. Material and methods: We have performed a literature review to identify potential studies of different treatments for flexible flat foot. We have consulted the main search enginesand biomedical databases: Medline, PubMed, Enfispo, Results: In our search, we found 147 abstracts with our selected keywords. 106 articles of the previously mentioned were excluded afterreading them, because theydid not meetthe study criteria for selection. Therefore, we obtained 44 potentially relevant. 4 of these were conservative treatment studies for the PPF, 17 about surgical treatments and 23 were descriptive analysis of the subject. Conclusions:With this search, we point out the lack of studies with orthopedicand conservative treatments, being, however, a wide bibliography about studies in diverse surgical techniques for flexible flatfoot. Whereby, the future researches should get valid and reliable methods for the classification of flexible flatfoot, that facilitate the adequately valued measures for the intervention that we are carring out. In the future, the investigation should run to do clinical trials that include a greater number of patients that compare different combinations and algorithms of conservative treatments to analyze its cost-effectiveness in a medium-long term.