Tibial lengthening: a preliminary report.

A preliminary review of 9 tibial lengthenings has been made to assess the value of a modification of the Anderson operation. The procedure can be carried out in one stage and is applicable to the older child and young adult. This is important as it may be used in the late or neglected case where epiphyseal arrest has failed or was never done. Five out of 9 patients in this series were skeletally mature. Leg lengthening procedures will always entail certain hazards. Complications occurred in 7 of the 9 patients, but were recognized early and expeditiously managed, and in several instances resulted in only minor deformity. The satisfactory end results in this series are attributable to the principle of limiting tibial lengthening to no more than 10 per cent of the overall bone length, i.e. 5 cm or less. No neurovascular complications occurred. Although tibial lengthening is hazardous and can cause severe disability, the results reported here suggest that in selected cases, it is a valuable procedure for correction of leg length discrepancy.