How about breaking the long bones of your patient’s limb and keeping them apart for new bone to grow and lengthen the limb? Whatever cruel and painful it may sound, this is the basic of distraction osteogenesis, a method of limb lengthening, a cosmetic procedure being popularized in our part of the world with no ethical control over it. What is limb lengthening surgery? Distraction osteogenesis is a surgical process used to reconstruct skeletal deformities and lengthen the long bones of the body.
A corticotomy is used to fracture the bone into two segments, and the two bone ends are gradually moved apart during the distraction phase, allowing new bone to form in the gap. When the desired or possible length is reached, a consolidation phase follows in which the bone is allowed to keep healing. Distraction osteogenesis has the benefit of simultaneously increasing the bone length and the…
