TREATMENT OF DEFORMITIES AROUND KNEE USING ILIZAROV DEVICE

Abstract

Between 7- 1 995 and 5-1 999 I 0 limbs of 9 patients with deformiti es around th e knee of di verse eti ol ogy including ri ckets, Bl ount 's disease, epi physeal i njury, a nd poliomyeli tis were treated using gradual mecha nica l di stract ion by lli za rov external fixator. 8 cases were m ales and I case was femal e. Th e deformity was of two types bony deform ity a nd soft ti ssue contracture de formity. The pa tien.ts were followed up unti l full correcti on and consolidation (in cases of bony deformity) and one mo nth after ful l correction in cases of fl exion contract ure cases) th en the construct was grad ua ll y removed.

The et i ol ogies of deformiti es were: I . Ri ckets. 2. Blount's di sease.

3. Polim yeli ti es.

4. Epi physeal injury.

A fu ll correction was obtai ned in a ll cases with recurrence of some degrees of 2 cases (20 %), one of them was young girl with genu va lgum de formity due to r i ckets with recurrence of 1 5° due to ea rl y wei gh t bearing and the oth er case was a case flex ion contracture knee (3 1 °) secondary to old poli omyeliti s with recurrence of 10 ° of the deformity.

From the present li tera tu re we could achieve th e following concl usi ons:

The correction of deform i ty a round the knee need d eta il ed preoperati ve pl a ning to obta in to good outcome.

The conventional methods of treatment h ave 3 mam disadvantages: ( I ) Inaccurate correction.

(2) Lack of earl y mobili zation.

(3) Non-availabil ity of postopera ti ve modul ation.

Ilizarov meth odology in t rea ting deformiti es around the knee is an excellent method in this s u bject overcom ing the m a in disadvantages of conventiona l m ethod s of trea tment through a llowing:

1) Accurate correction of the deformity.

2) Early postoperative ambulation.

3) Modu l arity of the apparatus allowing postoperative gradual correction of the defo rmity and dealing with compl ex deformities and associated shorten ing.