Cosmetic bilateral leg lengthening

Abstract

The Ilizarov method for leg lengthening was used for cosmetic reasons in 54 patients with constitutional short stature. A mean lengthening of 7 cm with a low rate of complications produced an excellent or good outcome in all the patients, including improvement in psychological disturbances related to short stature. Those who undergo the procedure must be highly motivated, fully informed and understand the technique and possible complications. We suggest that the Ilizarov method for cosmetic limb lengthening is a technique without major complications. However, it requires careful follow-up, and the involvement of orthopaedic surgeons who are familiar with use of the circular frame and are experienced in limb lengthening and correction of deformity for pathological conditions.

Leg lengthening by distraction osteogenesis using the Ilizarov apparatus: a novel concept of tibia callus subsidence and its influencing factors

“…Thus we can conclude that a BMD ratio of 0.85 can be taken as a criterion to decide the time of fixator removal with respect to preventing delayed callus subsidence. Study of callus pattern and its correlation with clinical outcome was first performed by Catagni [7], later by Hamanishi et al [13], and recently by Ru Li et al [19]. In our study we used callus patterns seen at the time of fixator removal with only five out of ten patterns noted at the time of fixator removal.…”

Cosmetic Lower Limb Lengthening by Ilizarov Apparatus: What are the Risks?

“…The same technique is being used to increase the height of somatically normal persons who report negative feelings regarding their short stature [2,6,11,20] deriving from cosmetic, social, and occupational concerns.…”

Editorial: Indications - On the Fringes and in the Mainstream

“…Papers describe ''diagnoses'' like ''constitutional short stature,'' use acronyms like ''LFS'' (lengthening for stature) [10,16], and talk about procedures to ''correct'' the condition [11]. Our compliments to those others who call it like it is [5,8].…”

“…These reports typically have all of the shortcomings associated with this study design: Selection bias, limited followup and, critically, assessment bias. While some of these studies try to rationalize the decisions to do these procedures by describing the psychological dysphoria experienced by patients [1,5,9,13], it is particularly telling that we found none that presented before-and-after results using validated tools (of which many are available) to assess whether the lengthening helped relieve patients of the psychic burden of being ''short.'' Quite simply, it is wrong to measure the results of a procedure designed to address psychological symptoms using only a ruler.…”

“…If short stature is causing dysphoria or other emotional fallout, it seems essential to define, measure, and evaluate after treatment the psychological impact of that condition and the surgery for it, given that complications often occur with limb lengthening [7]. This may be particularly relevant in elective situations, where the surrounding soft tissues and joints are not ''programmed'' to tolerate the extra inches regardless of whether old [1,5,14] or newer approaches [4,9,11,13,15] are used. In many important ways -including scarring, contractures, infections, bone healing issues, premature physeal closures, increased stresses at the adjacent joints, trunk-limb disproportion and unplanned additional surgical procedures -these patients can pay dearly for the surgeon's decision to offer this intervention.…”