Q: First pregnancy for my wife had been aborted due to some reason. MTP was done 1 year ago. MTP sample was sent for analysis and it was found that it had a karyotype as 45X0. Later my wife conceived a month later. I got a baby boy 3 months ago. Premature by one month, caesarian delivery, and with a deformity in legs - bilateral CTEV. Blood pressure during eight months of pregnancy for my wife went high, this was the reason for caesarian delivery. Is CTEV a genetic problem? If it is, what is the remedy/corrective actions to be taken for subsequent pregnancy so that this problem should be avoided? I have shown my son to doctor who says this is a grade 4 severity? Is CTEV 100% correctable?

A:Like many things in medicine we do not know the exact cause of Club feet(Congenital Talipes Equino Varus - CTEV). I am sure you would have got karyotyping done for this child also and if you have not done so far ask your paediatrician whether it is required and if there are any other abnormalities in the child. If there are none, (as is most likely) the child will have an excellent chance of a full recovery and a normal life. Of course the child will need care of an expert paediatric orthopaedic surgeon. Repeated casts and surgery if and when required is the right treatment. There is nothing that is 100% in medicine so to ask if it 100% curable is difficult to answer but with good treatment it should be nearly that. If there are no abnormalities and the karyotyping is normal there is a 2-8 percent chance of recurrence in a subsequent child (from various published series). There is always another way to look at statistics and though 2-8 percent recurrence is a very high risk it also means that 92-98 percent chance is that the baby would not have a CTEV. Please be assured that it is unlikely to occur again but if it does it is certainly treatable condition.