The comparison between plate and nail-assisted lengthening of the femurs in children / 中华骨科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:In this study, lengthening over nail (LON) and plating after lengthening (PAL) were compared by the process of treatment and therapeutic effect in the children's femoral lengthening cases,to guide treatment choices; and in the PAL group there was another comparison between different timeline of plate fixation after lengthening to formulate reasonable technical route.Methods:Since January 7, 2014 to September 10, 2018, a total of 21 cases of LON and PAL surgery had been carried out, including 12 males and 9 females. The average age at their operation was 12.43±3.12 years. There were 10 patients in the LON group and 11 patients in the PAL group, in the PAL group 5 cases was synchronous fixation, which means removal of the external fixator and plate fixation would be performed in the same surgery, 6 cases was asynchronous fixation, which means plate fixation would be performed at least 2 weeks later after the removal offixator to reduce the risk of infection. The recorded data includesgender, date of birth, reason of discrepancy and treatment history, age at surgery, lengthening distance, the length of duration with frame, healing time, total duration time and total blood loss of seriesoperations, ROM of the knee joint, complications, etc.Statistical analysis was made by SPSS 22.0 software, and then reasonable treatment strategies were proposed.Results:In the LON group, the medianlengthening distance was 7.10 (6.63, 7.70) cm, the median total duration time was 300 (240, 330) min, the medianspeed of healing was 1.12 (0.78, 1.72) month/cm, complications were found in 3 cases, the median ROM of knee joint was 125.00° (117.50°, 150.00°); in the PAL group, the data respectively were 6.00 (5.00, 8.00) cm, 260 (230, 465) min, 1.00 (0.75,1.71) month/cm, 3 cases, 100.00° (90.00°, 150.00°), the difference between them was not statistically significant (all P>0.05). 2. In the PAL group, the difference of number of surgeries, total duration time, total blood loss, complication rate, healing speed and postoperative function between synchronous and asynchronous fixation was not statistically significant (all P>0.05). Conclusion:They are similarbetween LON and PAL techniques in the process of treatment and therapeutic effect. The surgeons could make choices according to the growth potential of the patients and their own custom operation methods. In the case of the current sample size, there is no statistical difference in the therapeutic effect between the synchronous and asynchronous plate fixation in the PAL method, but the sample size needs to be increased for further study.