Lengthening of the lower limbs in Ollier's disease: problems related to surgery

Ollier's disease is a chondromatosis of the long bones that occurs rarely but that is highly disabling because it causes severe dysmetria and deformity of the lower limbs. Surgical correction of these skeletal changes is obstructed by poor mechanical resistance of the bone tissue affected and by the amount of lengthening required to even the lower limbs. It is the purpose of this study to indicate the surgery of choice for the treatment of this disease, comparing the two most recent methods used: Wagner's technique and the Ilizarov method. The latter is more reliable in terms of mechanical hold and the possibility of correcting severe deformities, producing bone regenerate of excellent quality even in major lengthening procedures. These results were obtained by adapting the Ilizarov method to the features of the chondromatous bone, thanks to the extreme malleability of the circular external fixator.