USA Health pediatric orthopaedic surgeon first in state to use new hip implant
The 3P Pediatric Plating Platform Hip System allowed pediatric orthopaedic surgeon William Cutchen, M.D., and the operative team to address an adolescent patient’s fracture and deformity in one setting.
By Carol McPhail
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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, William Cutchen, M.D., 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.
“This system allowed us to compress the fracture but then also tilt the femoral neck up and make her hip more normal, putting it in a better position to heal,” said Cutchen, who holds the academic title of assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine at the University of South Alabama. “All early signs are that she is going to make a very good recovery.”
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. OrthoPediatrics Corp launched the new implant system in the U.S. this past August.
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.
