At the Orthopedics Institute, exploration in research and technological innovations ensures every child has the opportunity to live a happy and healthy life. Our teams search for ways to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of orthopedic injuries, diseases and deformities. Through this research, we are constantly setting the standard for pediatric orthopedic care.

What our orthopedic research means for kids

Our institute is comprised of highly organized, collaborative programs, focused on understanding the biological causes of conditions and testing new therapies, treatments and medications to consistently offer better outcomes.

Although our pediatric orthopedic research spans many clinical subjects, our physicians and researchers find particular interest in areas such as skeletal dysplasia, concussion, spine, tumor and hip dysplasia. These areas allow our program to be on the leading edge of advancements for kids with orthopedic conditions.

Orthopedic advancements

We take a comprehensive approach to researching pediatric orthopedic conditions. As many of our providers are also team members at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in the Department of Orthopedics, we’re able to utilize the resources and academic support of the Musculoskeletal Research Center to further our research. At Children’s Colorado, our institute is comprised of many programs, from general to specialized, with the same goal of providing state-of-the-art care to kids.

Our Hand and Upper Extremity Program evaluates topics including congenital hand differences, hand and forearm surgical outcomes, and how to personalize treatment for every child’s unique healing trajectory. Both our Hip Preservation and Neuromuscular Programs focus on the hips and lower extremities to examine the long-term effects and progression of hip conditions, and they conduct retrospective studies to refine surgical intervention and improve surgical outcomes.

Researchers in our Spine Program look at the use of non-invasive treatments, such as bracing, casting and further observation, before surgery becomes necessary. For cases where surgery is the best solution, our physicians created one of the safest, most advanced spine surgery protocols in the world.

Many of the children seen in our institute are young athletes, leading our sports medicine doctors to study how to reduce risk of injuries, introduce novel anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction surgery and further improve treatment protocols, postoperative recovery and observational assessments. But some kids do encounter injuries from traumatic accidents, which is where our trauma and fracture team comes in. We're specifically interested in the treatment of fractures, limb deformities, musculoskeletal infections and acute sports-related injuries.

A key priority of our work at the Orthopedics Institute is to share our findings with the pediatric orthopedic community. In these short videos, our pediatric orthopedic experts offer insights into the advanced treatments and specialized clinical care they provide at our hospital.

Musculoskeletal Biobank and clinical trials

The Orthopedics Institute conducts research through many different mediums, including donations of anonymous blood and tissue samples to the Musculoskeletal Biobank. The Musculoskeletal Biobank connects doctors, researchers, kids and teens to better understand, treat and prevent conditions. Through the anonymous sample, our scientists can make discoveries in medicine that not only further muscle and bone research but are advances that may provide life-saving care for future generations.

In partnership with the University of Colorado, we collaborate to provide access to treatments that aren’t widely available to the public through clinical trials. We are at the forefront of innovation — providing hope, safety and teamwork so all children have the chance of a healthy future.