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A move to lengthen limbs internally rather than via an external scaffold could reduce the effects of painful treatments, especially among younger patients
December 27, 2012 | 10
Erica Voss and daughter Renee, now 15-years-old: Limb lengthening is a time-consuming process. Patients must come in for multiple consultations to map their growth patterns using special software to compute the measurements....[More]
Renee underwent a seven-and-a-half-hour surgical procedure to implant the Precice technology. The rod inside Renee's leg contains a typical rare earth magnet attached to a gearbox....[More]
Renee has to go into the hospital three times a day for this lengthening procedure. The process is deliberately slow to give her bone time to heal each time it is pulled farther apart.
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Renee spends months of her life in the hospital and must attend physical therapy daily or risk losing the ability to walk normally. The hour-long workouts are tough....[More]
More than 30 people have been fitted with Precice technology at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore since early 2012. Although the process is painful, doctors say it is a significant improvement over other options such as the external fixator....[More]
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10 Comments
Add CommentNew tech?? If 20 years old or older is 'new' I guess the article is correct.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh ok, a magnetically driven internal fixator, I finished reading... neat!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisImagine her strength, resolve and toughness! One day this young lady will run a company or be an astronaut or be President of the United States or inventor or teacher or have some other amazing role.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdiscrete pieces of bone are pulled apart to lengthen legs an average of 1.25 centimeters per day. The body regenerates bone, filling the gap in a matter of hours.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes the author realise that is half an inch per day?
Legs can only stretch about 12.7 centimeters at a time so patients must come in for multiple operations.
Does the author realise that is over 5 inches?
Do these things get edited? This is supposed to be a science magazine.
Great education system you have in the USA. Not understanding the difference between metric & imperial measures led to a Mars spacecraft worth billions being lost a few years ago & no doubt many deaths each year through wrong prescriptions & the like.
My independent research on the lengthening process shows that it yields around a millimeter a day so I'm pretty sure the lengths described are incorrect. Carlyle is correct. This is what happens when we stick with an out dated system of measurements.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObviously you did t research it enough bc Im 100% sure that my X-rays don't lie neither do my Drs. Out of 10 inches of being short, I gained 8 1/2 inches with two lengthenings that were both stretched over an 8month period within 3 yrs of each other.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI know this lady personally and she is the most amazing girl that you will ever meet. She has the biggest heart and the most loyalty that you could ever ask in a person. She never lets anything get her down. She keeps fighting till she wins. I am very proud to say that I know her and she is a friend of mine. You couldnt ask for a better person.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLindsay, please can I get to know more about your procedure. I am 21 this year just under 5ft 7 (173 cm). I am thinking of a height surgery for couple of years now but will only be looking for 3-4 inches max. Is there any recommendation you can give?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCarlyle, maybe we should go the Eastern European model or maybe the Zambian model of living. Before you blubber away about how bad the American way of doings things is, lets first remember that 90% of the world's innovation of the past 100 years has come from our "backwards" ways of doing things. I do realize that there will always be people who hate America out of jealousy and I can't blame you for that. If I didn't live in America, I'd be jealous and hate America too. Most of the rest of the world tries to implement democratic constitutions and the American way of life for a reason and there's a reason we have a massive IMMIGRATION problem, not EMIGRATION.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a Facebook, you can certainly contact me through there.
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