[The lax juvenile flexible flatfoot--disease or normal variant?].

Abstract The spectrum of normal variations of children's feet is extremely broad and often difficult to separate from pathological conditions. Especially the flexible flatfoot normally disappears during growth, and even if it persists up to adult life, it hardly has any pathological significance. The natural course taken even by severe flexible flatfoot in children leads to results that are as good, if not even better than when surgery had been performed; therefore, more reticence with surgical treatment in such cases is advocated.