New publication on growth plate stresses at the distal femoral growth plate in children with cerebral palsy compared to a healthy cohort

As a result of winning the ESMAC Best Paper Award 2023, Willi Koller and his co-authors were asked to submit a full paper on this study which has just been published open access in Gait & Posture. In this study, we evaluated the stresses within the distal growth plate in participants with cerebral palsy (CP) and in a cohort of typically developing (TD) children.

Significant differences were observed between the groups. Our findings revealed that the knee flexion angle during the stance phase has a big impact on growth plate stresses at the distal femur. The simulation results of this study can serve as a reference dataset for future investigations.

We would like to encourage peers to use the freely available GP-Tool (https://github.com/WilliKoller/ GP-Tool) and conduct similar studies with large sample sizes to improve our general understanding of typical and pathological femoral bone growth with the ultimate goal to support and improve clinical decision making.

Find the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gaitpost.2024.06.012