Classification of Aitken for Congenital Proximal Femoral Focal Deficiency (PFFD)

Description

Aitken divided patients with a congenital deficiency of the proximal femur into 4 groups.

	Class A	Class B	Class C	Class D
head of the femur	present and ossified	present and ossified	present but not ossified	absent
acetabulum	adequate	adequate	dysplastic	absent
femoral segment	very short	short and deformed	short and deformed	short and deformed
other	see below	bony tuft at proximal end of femoral shaft	bony tuft at proximal end of femoral shaft	no bony tuft

In class A the connection between the femoral shaft and the head-neck-trochanter may or may not be ossified. Often there is a pseudoarthrosis at this point with varus deformity.

In class B and C there is no osseous connection between the femoral head and the femoral shaft at skeletal maturity.

Children with a congenital proximal femoral deficiency usually have:

(1) inequality of limb length

(2) malrotation

(3) inadequacy of proximal musculature

(4) instability of proximal joints

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Description

Specialty

ICD-10