In this paper we study the isometric extension problem and show that every surjective isometry between the unit spheres of L p (µ) (1 < p < ∞, p = 2) and a Banach space E can be extended to a linear isometry from L p (µ) onto E, which means that if the unit sphere of E is (metrically) isometric to the unit sphere of L p (µ), then E is linearly isometric to L p (µ). We also prove that every surjective 1-Lipschitz or anti-1-Lipschitz map between the unit spheres of L p (µ 1 , H 1 ) and L p (µ 2 , H 2 ) must be an isometry and can be extended to a linear isometry from L p (µ 1 , H 1 ) to L p (µ 2 , H 2 ), where H 1 and H 2 are Hilbert spaces.