The Child Elbow: Practical Approach to Traumatic and Orthopedic Disorders

The elbow is a complex joint and the presence of several ossification centres which appear at different ages and with different timing in boys and girls, can cause great difficulty in diagnosis and in distinguishing the normal from the pathological. Because of its complexity, and the conformation of the three bones that constitute the joint, the elbow has always led to difficulties in the diagnosis and treatment of the diseases and traumatic conditions that afflict it. If this statement is true for the elbow of an adult patient, the situation is even more complex for a child's elbow. Imaging is often difficult to interpret and consequently diagnosis and management are delayed or not even carried out at all. For all these reasons, and driven by the wish to produce a book that collects a wide and exhaustive description of all the aspects of the pathology of the elbow in children, we assembled a panel of experts from prestigious institutions all over the world with the purpose of offering a volume as complete as possible, covering all scenarios of the diseases that can afflict the elbow in childhood.