Aim high: innovative surgery gives hope to short children
Already at the age of 5, Sofia and her mother Yuliana Witchovski from the Kiryat Eliezer neighborhood in Haifa, realized that Sofia would grow up to be a short girl. Sophia was diagnosed by Prof. Mark Idelman, director of the pediatric orthopedics department at the Ruth Shevchenko Hospital, as suffering from Schmidt Dysplasia Syndrome. This is a medical syndrome that damages the growth plates in children's bones, which may lead to deformed legs and leave those children short at the end of puberty.
◄A real revolution in pediatric orthopedics and not only • Watch
Alignment and extension of the hip bones
Now in the orthopedic department for children at Rambam, an innovative treatment has been started that allows the young patients to straighten the hip bones and lengthen them. In Sofia's case, the team, led by Prof. Idelman, began its therapeutic procedure in several stages. About a year and a half ago, Sofia underwent a correction of a deformity in her shins, a procedure that ended lengthening them by 4 centimeters. When this stage of the treatment procedure was completed, Sophia moved on to the next stage, during which an innovative magnetic nail was implanted in her body, which she lengthens herself (the unique nail is called SLN - Self Lengthening Nail). The nail was implanted in both of her femurs, and it allows it to be controlled outside to the body using an external magnet and in a controlled manner, without pain and without feelings of difficulty. If it were not for the surgery, Sofia will finish puberty at a maximum height of 35 meter and 13 centimeters. Sofia, who is currently turning 30, already reaches a height of XNUMX meter and XNUMX centimeters, so that there reason for optimism.
Using the innovative magnetic nail, patients receive a significantly better quality of life, because if in the past limb lengthening involved the use of an external fixator, this had many consequences including damage to muscle tissue and sometimes also to the skeleton, severe pain, significant movement restrictions, infections of course, degeneration and mobility limited Now, the new nail allows controlled control of its length externally to the place where it was implanted, there is no exposure to infections, the range of motion of the legs and joints is almost completely preserved, the deformity is corrected, the pain levels are almost non-existent, the muscle tissues are preserved, which helps the young patients recover quickly more and get an improved quality of life.
Prof. Idelman:
"Extending limbs with the help of a magnetic nail has really been a revolution in pediatric orthopedics in recent years, but not only. It is important to understand that when a child grows up with a deformity in his legs, the abnormal walking will later cause him damage elsewhere in the body such as the pelvis or the spine. Correcting the deformity and positioning children Like Sophia on her feet in this respect, it's just a coup."
Does it also have the option of height extension for adults?
I don't know exactly what the process was that our neighbor's son went through. He was also a short child and underwent a certain procedure in the United States and also grew tall.