1 Recommendations

Guidance

1.1

Use minimally invasive percutaneous surgical techniques with internal fixation as an option for correcting hallux valgus with standard arrangements in place for clinical governance, consent and audit.

1.2

These challenging techniques should only be done by a clinician with specific training and specialist experience in the procedure techniques.

1.3

Clinicians should enter details about everyone having these procedures onto a registry, which could include the BOFAS registry. This should include:

details of patient selection
the technique used
the type of implant used
short and longer-term patient-reported outcomes.

Why the committee made these recommendations

Evidence from a mixture of studies on a wide variety of techniques suggests that minimally invasive techniques work as well as standard open surgical techniques. Evidence also suggests that patient-reported outcomes, such as pain and recovery time, are the same as for open surgical techniques. There is no robust evidence that one type of minimally invasive technique works better than another. There are no major safety concerns.