Skip to main content

1968TrevorD

 

Content



[i] Annotation

Fragments from the book: Trevor D. The place of the Hey Groves-Colonna operation in the treatment of congenital dislocation of the hip (1968). The author discusses E. Hey Groves's operation for reconstruction of the ligamentum capitis femoris (LCF) in the reduction of congenital hip dislocation. The text in Russian is available at the following link: 1968TrevorD.


Quote, pp. 241-243.

THE LATE PROFESSOR HEY GROVES, one-time Professor of Surgery in the University of Bristol, a Surgeon of the Bristol General Hospital, and a Vice-President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in his Bradshaw Lecture at the College (1926) stated of all the joints in the body the hip is perhaps the most important, and in regards to its ailments it is certainly the most difficult for treatment'. Further, he mentioned that ' to replace and retain the dislocated hip, to establish correct relations between an ill-formed femoral head and an equally ill-developed acetabulum is a true orthopaedic problem. These statements made in 1926 are still true to-day.

Hey Groves lamented that little had been done for children with congenital dislocation of the hip between the ages of four and 14; below four he considered that the then current practice of manipulative reduction followed by immobilization in a plaster of Paris spica for a sufficient length of time was adequate; subsequent studies have shown that this opinion was unduly optimistic. Above 14 he considered reconstruction of the dislocated hip was not possible, with which there is general agreement. But between four and 14 years of age he maintained that much could and should be done for these children, but only by operative means.

He outlined a surgical programme which was later published in the British Journal of Surgery (1926), and also in the Robert Jones Birthday Volume (1928). He recommended open replacement of the femoral head, and, if stable into a well-formed socket, then plaster of Paris immobilization for several months. If the femoral head could not be contained the acetabulum should be improved by a kind of shelf-operation or deepened sufficiently by reaming to receive the femoral head. Hey Groves found the latter manoeuvre produced stability, but as the femoral head, which had probably some areas of erosion and had poor articular cartilage, was placed in actual contact with the acetabulum, denuded of its articular cartilage with raw bleeding osseous walls, little wonder that complete stiffness occurred. Thereupon, he developed his procedure further by recommending that the acetabulum should be deepened as before, as this was the best method of producing stability, but that there should be some structure placed between the untouched femoral head and the raw surface of the acetabulum, namely the joint capsule which was lined on its inner surface by smooth synovial membrane. Hey Groves had observed a constriction of the capsule in children of this age-range who had been walking, namely the hour-glass; thus he advised that the joint capsule should be dissected from its surroundings right down proximally to the hour-glass, that is between the hour-glass and the acetabulum; there it should be divided and in doing so the ligamentum teres, if present, also inevitably divided. Accordingly, he recommended, in addition, such was his genius, that an artificial ligamentum should be constructed by using stout, strong, kangaroo tendinous filaments, attaching them to the capsule and then threading them through a hole in the floor of the deepened socket and bringing the tendinous fibres out of the pelvis over the brim of the pelvis; the femoral head covered by capsule was then reduced into the deepened socket and the tendinous kangaroo fibres were then securely sutured to the brim of the pelvis or to Poupart's ligament (Fig. la)-a most ingenious operation, but, alas, nothing more was written in the British surgical literature concerning this procedure! We do not know how often Hey Groves performed this operation, nor do we know what the end results were like.

But in 1932 Professor Paul Colonna described a very similar procedure as the result of his experience in 1929 when dealing with a boy of seven years suffering from bilateral congenital dislocation of the hip at Bellevue Hospital, New York. Open replacement of the right hip into a deepened socket was performed without any preliminary traction (Hey Groves insisted on adequate preliminary traction); the replacement was accomplished according to Colonna's words by 'main strength and awkwardness; the result was a completely stiff hip with X-ray evidence of fragmentation and traumatic osteo-arthritis. Whereupon, in the following year, when tackling the left hip, preliminary traction was used, the femoral head was placed in a deepened socket with the intervention of the capsule in exactly the manner, except for the ligamentum-teres reconstruction, as recommended by Hey Groves. Since then, Paul Colonna made several contributions in American surgical literature on the indication, the procedure and the end results of the operation. In other words, it was a British invention developed in America, hence my reason for naming the operation the Hey Groves-Colonna. Having paid due homage to the originators, I think that it is wiser to refer to it as Capsular Arthroplasty; incidentally, the only arthroplasty of the hip at present performed without the intervention of any foreign material.

Quote p. 250.

When dealing with a subluxation the procedure differs a little. To obtain sufficient capsule to cover the femoral head is a problem, and so the operation proceeds anteriorly and posteriorly as described, but from above it is most important to dissect into the acetabulum between it and the compressed, tough and usually smooth, soft tissue against which the femoral head has been articulating; it is taken along with the capsule which is thereby made adequate.

When the hour-glass is reached it is divided across, the ligamentum teres if present being divided at the sometime. The femurs now free from any acetabular attachments; the capsule is incised for a short distance extending from the hour-glass opening to allow inspection of the femoral head, notice being paid to the state of the articular cartilage, particularly as regards pitting or erosion and attention as to its size, shape and any deformity; and the presence of any adhesions between the capsule and the femoral head most likely to be encountered where previous hip operations have been performed. On occasion the capsule is exceedingly thick on its superior aspect, 1 centimeter or more in thickness, generally due to the response of stresses of weight bearing; it has to be pared down to about 3 millimeters, otherwise it becomes impossible to make a socket large enough to accommodate the femoral head with such a thick capsule. On the other hand the capsule may be scanty, and to cover the articular surface of the femoral head adequately flaps may have to be raised from the thickest part of such a capsule and sutured in rotation fashion. Before closure of the capsule it is possible to estimate within a wide margin the amount of anteversion of the femoral neck. The incision in the capsule is closed by interrupted sutures of chromic catgut, and this closure must be really secure and the femoral articular surface completely covered by capsule, which is lined on its inner surface by synovial membrane.

 


Fig. 1. (a) Diagram of operation proposed by the late Professor Hey Groves. (A) Raw bleeding surface of deepened socket at site of natural acetabulum. (B) Capsule covering femoral head. (C) Synovial membrane. (D) Reconstructed artificial ligamentum teres. (b) Method of applying skeletal traction. Kirschner wires are crossed to eliminate any side-slipping of the wires and stirrup-this method was suggested by Cyril Monty, M.D., F.R.C.S. Side-slipping can also be prevented by encasing the wires and stirrup in plaster of Paris. Note that the opposite hip has been immobilized in a plaster of Paris spica to stabilize the pelvis.


 


Trevor D. The place of the Hey Groves-Colonna operation in the treatment of congenital dislocation of the hip. Annals of The Royal College of Surgeons of England. 1968;43(5)241-58.  pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


Ernest William Hey Grove first described the operation of reconstruction of the LCF for congenital hip dislocation in 1926 in The Lancet. The following year, the author published a more detailed article in the British Journal of Surgery.

The work is cited in the following publications: 


David Trevor, MSc, FRCS. Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, Charing Cross Hospital; Consultant Surgeon, Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital.


ligamentum capitis femoris, ligamentum teres, ligament of head of femur, plastic surgery, reconstruction, congenital dislocation, pathology



NB! Fair practice / use: copied for the purposes of criticism, review, comment, research and private study in accordance with Copyright Laws of the US: 17 U.S.C. §107; Copyright Law of the EU: Dir. 2001/29/EC, art.5/3a,d; Copyright Law of the RU: ГК РФ ст.1274/1.1-2,7

                                                                   

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

1802PalmeraniÁ

   Palmerani Á , drawing Jacob wrestling with the angel (1802 ).  Depicting the circumstances and mechanism of the ligamentum capitis femoris (LCF) injury based on the description in the Book of Genesis: 25 And Ja cob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. 26 And when he saw that he could not prevail against him, he struck against the hollow of his thigh ; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was put out of joint, as he was wrestling with him. … 33 Therefore do the children of Israel not eat the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day; because he struck against the hollow of Jacob's thigh on the sinew that shrank.  ( 1922LeeserI , Genesis (Bereshit) 32:25-26,33) More about the plot in our work:  Ninth month, eleventh day   ( 2024 АрхиповСВ. Девятый месяц, одиннадцатый день ).     Ángel  Palmerani  – Jacob Wrestling with the Angel  ( 1802); original in the  a...

Human LCF intersection

HUMAN LCF INTERSECTION In the south of China, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the archaeological Neolithic site of Dingsishan was investigated. Burials of 355 people were found in this place. The authors of the article (2024YeZ_LiFJ) identified 91 skeletons with traces of manipulations with the remains. They are attributed to burials of the Dingsishan III-IV phase, aged 8.0-4.5 thousand years. 13 notches were found on the proximal part of various femurs. « Cutmarks on the femoral head, neck and intertrochanteric line, as well as along the medial linea aspera of the femoral shaft, suggest that soft tissue around the hip, including the iliofemoral ligament and the iliacus and adductor muscles, was severed to disarticulate the joint.» This and other postmortem bone injuries «... suggests that corpse treatment at Dingsishan included disarticulation » (2024YeZ_LiFJ).  Figure 4 of the cited article shows the distribution and direction of cutmarks on human skeletons from Dingx...

1614PagniniS

  Content [i]   Annotation [ii]   Original text (in  Latin) [iii]   English translation [iv]   Source  &  links [v]   Notes [vi]   Authors & Affiliations [vii]   Keywords [i]   Annotation Fragment from the book: Pagnini S. Thesaurus linguae sanctae, sive lexicon hebraicum (1614, Vol. 1). The author examines the translation into Latin of the term denoting ligamentum capitis femoris (LCF) in Hebrew biblical texts. The text in Russian is available at the following link: 1614PagniniS . [ii]   Original text (in   Latin) Quote, p. 392 ניר  est Neruus Genesis 32.32 Idcirco non comedent (pro, comedunt) filij Israel  ניר   את   neruum. Et Iesah 48.4  וניד  & nerruus serreus ceruix tua: vel, secundum Rab. Dair. & virga ferrea: sic appellate, quòd nerui sint ceruice  בניד  in neruo Genes. 32.32. Iech 37.6. Et dabo super vos  צירים  neruos. Ijob 10. II ossibusq;...

1140St.Marie-Madeleine

  Basilica of Saint Mary Magdalene of Vézelay, capital s  – Jacob with the Angel (1125 – 1140).  Depicting the circumstances and mechanism of the ligamentum capitis femoris (LCF) injury based on the description in the Book of Genesis: 25 And Ja cob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. 26 And when he saw that he could not pre vail against him, he struck against the hollow of his thigh ; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was put out of joint, as he was wrestling with him. … 33 Therefore do the children of Israel not eat the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day; because he struck against the hollow of Jacob's thigh on the sinew that shrank.  ( 1922LeeserI , Genesis (Bereshit) 32:25-26,33) More about the plot in our work:  Ninth month, eleventh day   ( 2024 АрхиповСВ. Девятый месяц, одиннадцатый день ).     Basilica of Saint Mary Magdalene of Vézelay (1125 – 1140). Capital (...

2003IvanovYV

  Ivanov YV, panel, wood carving – Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (2003). Variant of depicting the  circumstances and mechanism of the ligamentum capitis femoris (LCF) injury based on the description in the Book of Genesis:  25 And Ja cob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. 26 And when he saw that he could not pre vail against him, he struck against the hollow of his thigh ; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was put out of joint, as he was wrestling with him. … 33 Therefore do the children of Israel not eat the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day; because he struck against the hollow of Jacob's thigh on the sinew that shrank.  ( 1922LeeserI , Genesis (Bereshit) 32:25-26,33) More about the plot in our work:  Ninth month, eleventh day   ( 2024 АрхиповСВ. Девятый месяц, одиннадцатый день ).     Ivanov Yuri Vitalievich – Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (2003);  im...

The First Scientific Mention

  European science has known the LCF for about 2500 years. It is the most important functional connection of the hip joint. The first person to describe the LCF was Hippocrates (c. 460-370 BCE). A written mention of the LCF is found in §1 of his treatise "On the Instrument of redactions". In our opinion, a book created in the library of the Asclepeion of the island of Kos. Hippocrates did not dissection of the human body, did not operate on the hip joint, did not have a CT scan and MRI. How he could discover the LCF? In our view, it is possible that Hippocrates treated a patient with an open hip dislocation. Track Music:  Blue Dot Sessions ,  Vittoro  (CC BY-NC 4.0 DEED / fragment) keywords: ligamentum capitis femoris, ligament of head of femur, ligamentum teres, hip dislocation .                                                     ...

Human Children. Retelling of Chapter 10

      Short retelling of chapter 10 of the essay: Arkhipov S.V. Human Children: The Origins of Biblical Legends from a Physician's Perspective. Joensuu: Author's Edition, 2025. [In Russian]  Chapter 10. THE ARK AND THE CAVE The Book of Genesis does not specify where Noah lived before the flood, but it is plausible his home was in the "land of Nod." To save his family and terrestrial animals, Noah builds an ark measuring "three hundred cubits" long, "fifty cubits" wide, and "thirty cubits" high, coated with pitch inside and out. The vessel has three decks, a pyramidal roof, a side door, and a window, likely at the top. Noah loads his wife, three sons with their wives, and representatives of birds, reptiles, and "clean and unclean cattle." The text lists some "passengers": Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and mentions "beasts," "cattle," "creeping things," "flying creatures,"...

1899ParsonsFG

  An excerpt from the article by Parsons FG. The joints of mammals compared with those of man: a course of lectures delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England (1899, pp. 301-306). The paper discusses the anatomy and presence of the ligamentum capitis femoris (LCF) in different animals. The author found in an experiment that in kangaroos, the LCF was stretched during hip extension. Below we publish an excerpt from the abstract and a critique of the lecture in the Lancet.   THEJOINTS OF MAMMALS COMPARED WITH THOSE OF MAN: A COUBSE OF LECTURES DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND. By F. G. PARSONS, F.R.C.S., late Hunterian Professor.   PART II.-JOINTS OF THE HIND LIMB. THE HIP JOINT. SOME of the chief points which attract attention in the hip joint of man are the three thickened parts of the capsule called the ilio-femoral, ischio-femoral, and pubo-femoral ligaments, as well as the intra-articular ligamentum teres running from the bottom of the ac...

Tweet of March 1, 2026

  Quotes from articles and books published in February 2025 mentioning the #ligamentum_capitis_femoris.  [En] https://roundligament.blogspot.com/2026/03/lcf-in-2026-february.html    [Ru] https://kruglayasvyazka.blogspot.com/2026/03/lcf-2026.html Tweet of March 1, 2026 #ligamentum_teres   #hip_joint   BLOG CONTENT TWITTER OR X                                                                            

Homo antecessor. Hip disarticulation

  HOMO ANTECESSOR. Hip disarticulation Postmortem separation of the leg from the pelvis in individuals of own species was performed by our evolutionary predecessors. In particular, this was done in the Homo antecessor community, which practiced cannibalism (2003TuttC). Ferna Y. et al. (1999) described evidence of intentional crushing of the femur diaphysis in a young individual (ATD6-76), presumably to extract bone marrow. The bone retained traces of not only several impacts by a striker, but also of an anvil on which the bone lay. The age of the said find in the Gran Dolina cave (Spain) is estimated at about 780 thousand years (1999FernaY_RosellJ). The above features indicate that the femur was initially separated from the soft tissues. In the second stage, the butcher had to use a stone tool to cut the muscles and strong external ligaments of the hip joint. In the next stage, he tore, or perhaps cut off, the ligamentum capitis femoris (LCF) to mobilize the hip and further manipul...