May 29th is National Foot-Cared Day. From 16:00 to 18:00 that day, Jiangmen Central Hospital held a webinar on Foot and Ankle Surgery jointly with Dr. med. Kai- Hinrich Olms, who is the Director of Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery, Helios Agnes Karll Hospital.

Dr. Olms is one of the first persons in Germany who performs foot and ankle surgeries in a very sophisticated way. And he was the Founding President of the Foot surgery Foundation in Germany, which is now the German Society for Foot and Ankle Surgery. Dr. Olms has been in the List of TOP Foot Surgeons in FOCUS magazine for consecutive 5 years ever since 2016.

At the beginning of the webinar, both parties gave detailed introductions of their own hospital and department to each other. First of all, Dr. MA GunShao from the Department of Extremities, Joints and Sports Medicine, Jiangmen Central Hospital gave a brief introduction of the Hospital and the Department to Dr. Olms.

Next, Dr. Olms introduced his hospital and department to the colleagues in Jiangmen Central Hospital.

As the guest speaker of the webinar, Dr. Olms gave three lectures titled “Acquired Adult Flat Foot”, “Scarf Osteotomy” and “Ankle Fracture Discussion”.

For the lecture titled “Acquired Adult Flat Foot”, Dr. Olms began with analyzing the disease from the aspects of anatomical and biomechanical characteristics of ankle joint. He believes that the treatment of flatfoot should be based on the analysis of its frontal plane, sagittal plane and transverse plane, so as to find out the dominant plane of its symptoms and carry out corresponding treatment. Later on, Dr. Olms elaborated on how to examine patients through professional methods.

During the examination, Dr. Olms gave pieces of advice: The examination should be always carried out under weight-bearing conditions; toe rise should be tested; the surgeons should define whether it is a rigid flatfoot or a flexible one, observe the wear-off pattern of the shoes and check the activity level. 

At last Dr. Olms put forward surgical suggestions. He recommended STJ arthrodesis or Koutsogiannis (MDO) for frontal-plane-dominant deformity, EVENS osteotomy for transverse deformity and medial column fusion as well as S.T. arch reconstruction for sagittal deformity.

The Chinese colleagues also raised questions about the treatment protocols, surgical indications and techniques and were greatly benefited by Dr. Olms’ detailed answers. 

The lecture titled “Scarf Osteotomy” was the next.

Dr. Olms placed the focus on analyzing the complications after Scarf Osteotomy- troughing. To avoid this, Dr. Olms suggested 2-3 weeks of non-weight bearing or partial weight bearing for the patients with osteoporotic bone/ large IM angle corrected/obesity.

Dr. Olms introduced that Lapidus Osteotomy has a wider range of indications than Scarf Osteotomy, such as instability of the 1st ray, very high IM-angle (HAV), hallux valgus with lateral metatarsalgia, flexible flatfoot, diabetic foot (stability of medial column), rheumatoid foot (stability of med.column) and so on. For the post-OP protocols, Dr. Olms suggested plat surgical shoes, partial weight-bearing of 20kg, thromboembolism prophylaxis for 1 week and full weight-bearing after 4-6 weeks.

For the last lecture, Dr. Olms shared his insights about ankle fractures, including exposure and fixation of Die-Punch Fragment, intra-operative assessment of tibiofibular syndesmosis reduction and consideration of whether to repair the deltoid ligament.

According to Dr. Olms’ conclusion, undisplaced fractures can be treated conservatively; dislocated /luxated fractures are emergencies; the anatomic reduction for the long term result is the critical and perfect length and rotation may avoid post-traumatic dislocation.

After the lectures, the Chinese colleagues expressed their great gratitude towards Dr. Olms for what he has prepared and shared for the webinar. The surgeons said that through the webinar, they learned more about Foot and Ankle Surgery from the top expert.