Research Article Lower Extremity Function following Partial Calcanectomy in High-Risk Limb Salvage Patients

Copyright © 2015 Noah G. Oliver et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Partial calcanectomy (PC) is an established limb salvage procedure for treatment of deep heel ulcerationwith concomitant calcaneal osteomyelitis.The purpose of this study is to determine if a relationship exists between the amount of calcaneus removed during PC and the resulting lower extremity function and limb salvage outcomes. Consecutive PC patients were retrospectively divided into two cohorts defined by the amount of calcaneus resected before wound closure: patients in cohort 1 retained = 50 % of calcaneus, while patients in cohort 2 underwent resection of>50 % of the calcaneus. The Lower Extremity Function Scale (LEFS) was used to assess postoperative lower extremity function. The average amount of calcaneus resected was 13 % ± 9.2 (1–39%) and 74 % ± 19.5 (51–100) in cohorts 1 and 2, respectively