Gastrocnemius Tightness and Foot Pain in Children

NCT ID: NCT05862246

Last Updated: 2025-06-05

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: RECRUITING
• Total Enrollment: 200 participants
• Study Classification: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2023-05-09
• Study Completion Date: 2028-06-30

Brief Summary

Foot and leg pain among otherwise healthy children is a common reason for referral to our pediatric orthopaedics outpatient clinic. The pain is often intermittent and transient, but for some the pain is more dominating and has an impact on the child and families. Children grown and have normal anatomical variations such as in-toeing, out-toeing, hypermobility, flatfeet, knock knees etc. Assessing such normal variants is a major part of pediatric orthopaedic practice, and a common finding is a positive Silvferskiöld test, indicating gastrocnemius tightness. This is when dorsiflexion of the ankle is limited with extended knee, compared to flexed knee. We do not know if this is a more frequent finding among children with foot and leg pain. There is however evidence that adults with painful foot conditions often have gastrocnemius tightness.

This project will investigate for gastrocnemius tightness in otherwise healthy children referred to our pediatric orthopaedic outpatient clinic with foot and leg pain, and compare results with a similar control group of children without pain. The aim is to investigate if there is an association, and how pain and tightness develops over time. The knowledge from this project will enable us to develop new treatment strategies to this patient group, where current evidence based recommendations are few.

Conditions

Child Development; Gastrocnemius Equinus

Study Design

• Observational Model Type: COHORT
• Study Time Perspective: PROSPECTIVE

Study Groups

Children with pain

These are children referred with fot and leg pain. Following outcomes will be measured on all included children:

Silvferskiölds test Height Weight Gender Age PROM child: Oxford Ankle and Foot Questionnaire for children PROM parent: Oxford Ankle and Foot Questionnaire for parents FPS pain scoring over 1 week

Clinical examination

Intervention Type: OTHER

No intervention, only clinical examination

Control group children without pain

Following outcomes will be measured on all included children in control group:

Silvferskiölds test Height Weight Gender Age

Clinical examination

Intervention Type: OTHER

No intervention, only clinical examination

Interventions

Clinical examination

No intervention, only clinical examination

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Otherwise healthy children referred to pediatric orthopaedic outpatient clinic with foot and/or leg pain with a normal leg function

Exclusion Criteria

• Patients with foot conditions, general medical conditions affecting the foot or clinical findings indicating a need for further investigation for a diagnosis. Such as:

Foot deformities (cavo-varus foot, clubfoot) Tarsal coalitions Neuro-orthopedic conditions (CP, MMC) Fracture sequelae Infections and tumour

• Minimum Eligible Age: 4 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 16 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

National Taiwan Normal University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

St. Olavs Hospital

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Håkon Langvatn

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

St. Olavs Hospital

Locations

St Olavs hospital

Trondheim, , Norway

Site Status: RECRUITING

Countries

Norway

Central Contacts

Tina Wik

Role: CONTACT

tina.stromdal.wik@stolav.no

+4772826521

Facility Contacts

Suki Liyanarachi

Role: primary

suki.liyanarachi@stolav.no

+4772821126

Other Identifiers

526706

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id