 | Professor Gavriil Abramovich Ilizarov graduated from medical school in the Soviet Union in 1943, near the end of World War II. After graduation, he was assigned to practice in Kurgan, a small town in western Siberia. He was the only physician within hundreds of miles and had little in the way of supplies and medicine. Faced with numerous cases of bone deformities and trauma victims due to the war, Professor Ilizazrov used the equipment at hand to treat his patients. Through trial and error, with handmade equipment, this self-taught orthopedic surgeon created the magical combination that would cause the bones to grow again, similar to the adolescent growth state. Thus the Ilizarov technique was created. For almost 45 years, Ilizarov and his co-workers have been perfecting their apparatus and helping individuals with severe orthopaedic abnormalities. Reports of dwarfs made taller, and birth defects corrected were first observed in Italy, and then presented in the United States where Professor Ilizarov's technique met initial skepticism. Today, Professor Ilizarov's methods are an acceptable means of correction of severe orthopaedic deformities. Limb correction is a gradual process which lengthens and straightens bone and soft tissue so a limb can function as normally as possible. There are many reasons why a person may be a candidate for limb correction. For many patients, the procedure is used to straighten or lengthen a bone. Others have a need because of a trauma which has caused highly fragmented breaks, bone loss, or to encourage a bone which isn't healing. This method takes advantage of the body's remarkable ability to grow new bone tissue. It involves the surgical application of a circular, metal frame called the Ilizarov fixator. Fixator rings are attached to each segment of the original bone through pins and wires, which hold each bone segment in place while new tissue is growing and maturing. There are two main phases to the correction process: correction/lengthening and consolidation. The lengthening phase is the time needed to gradually achieve the desired correction/length of the limb. The consolidation phase is needed for the new bone tissue to harden and mature. Each individual's body is different, but the total time of wearing the fixator is typically 4-12 months. Lengthening refers to the period of time it takes to "grow the bone." The lengthening phase begins after the surgeon cuts the bone and attaches the fixator. During this time the patient will be working with the physician and the physical therapist to make gradual adjustments to the fixator which increase the gap between the bone segments, adding "length" to the total limb. Over a period of months, new bone tissue will grow in the gap, ultimately hardening the area between the segment of the original bone. When the physician is satisfied with the length and position of the new bone, the consolidation phase begins. During this phase, the bone tissue matures and becomes solid. The patient still wears the fixator, but no adjustments are made. The consolidation phase is the longest part of the Ilizarov process. It takes twice as long for bone to harden as to does to lengthen it, so the consolidation phase typically doubles the time spent in the lengthening phase. | |
