Current Concepts Review Limb-Lengthening, Skeletal Reconstruction, and Bone Transport with the Ilizarov Method*

Ilizarov embarked on his remarkable medical career as a general practitioner in the small industrial town of Kurgan, Siberia, after World War IP"596. Antibiotics were scarce, and chronic osteomyelitis associated with loss of bone, non-unions, and skeletal deformities were so common that Ilizarov found himself practicing or-thopaedics although he had had no formal training in that specialty. With the use of modular-ring external fixators and transosseous wires attached to the rings under tension to stabilize the bone fragments, he intro-duced the concept of induction of local bone formation with a minimally invasive procedure6975,96. Ilizarov coined the term distraction osteogenesis to describe the induc-tion of new-bone formation between osseous surfaces that are gradually pulled apart9. His clinical successes i