What is the irregularity of the length of the legs?
The length of the leg length or the mismatch of the lower limbs (LLD) is a health condition in which one leg is shorter than the other. The irregularity can be in a tibia or femur or in both bones. If the difference in length is significant (over one inch or 3 cm), it can cause problems with walking and other orthopedic problems, most often scoliosis. It may also be the result of an injury or a secondary condition. Blood vessel or hemangioma tumor in one leg can cause increased blood flow to this side, resulting in increased growth. Injuries to one foot, especially if it affects the pipe plate or growth plate, tibia or femur, can also cause mismatch in the lengths of the legs.
At the same time, the polio of neuromuscular disease was a common cause of the length of the leg length, but the disease is now rare. Wilmnador, kidney cancer, is another possible cause of this condition, so it is important that children with LLD examine ultrasound kidney examination to avoid this possibility. AtThe diagnosis of the length of the leg length is also important to rule out the apparent differences in the length in which the real problem is the wrong alignment of the hips, not the difference in the length of the limbs.
For very mild LLD, under the thumb (3 cm), there may be sufficient small lifting in one shoe for treatment. For more serious cases, there are three basic types of surgery to treat the length of the legs: shortening longer legs, stopping the growth of longer legs and prolonging shorter legs. All surgical methods require the determination of the length of each foot after the growth is completed if the patient is no longer fully grown at the time of surgery. If the patient is fully grown and the reaste height so that the loss of the thumb is not problematic, shortening longer legs is a preferred procedure.
Growth in a longer leg of the LLD patient can be stopped by the procedure called epiphysheodesis, in which the epiphysis plate of the affected limb is removed. EPIPHYSEODESIS is the most common surgery used to treat LLD. This method stops growth completely and is able to repair only the length of the leg length (5 cm).Extension of shorter legs is the most complicated and most risky possibilities of surgery for LLD, but it is the best method if there is more than two inches between the limbs. Usually, the affected bone is partially cut and the external device is used to slow the limb, allowing the bone healing and growth when the leg is stretched. There is no potentially no limit on how far the bones can be stretched using this method, but the longer the procedure it takes, the higher the risk of complications.
No matter which surgery is used to treat the irregularity of the length of the legs, the treatment is a lengthy process. The patient may need to be measured in one or two years to predict the final length of the legs, and the leg extension can take up to a year. Fortunately, there may be many patients with LLD fully cured by the above -described methods.