Femoral Deformity Correction in Children and Young Adults Using Taylor Spatial Frame

Abstract

The Taylor spatial frame (TSF) has been used commonly in children and young adults. Its use in the tibia is more extensively studied and applied than in the femur. We asked whether normal alignment can be achieved with accuracy during correction of femoral deformities while avoiding major complications in children and young adults. We retrospectively reviewed the clinical and radiographic records of 20 patients (22 limbs), ages 5.9 to 24.6 years, who underwent a TSF for femoral deformity. Etiology included a number of diagnoses of the pediatric age. Minimum followup was 4.5 months (mean, 15.7 months; range, 4.5-35 months). The mean time in frame was 6.2 months (range, 2.6-19 months). Frontal and sagittal plane deformities were corrected to within normal values. A mean limb lengthening of 4.9 cm (range, 1.5-9 cm) was performed in eight femora in seven of which the limb length discrepancy was a secondary concern. External fixation index in the lengthening subgroup was 2.2 months/ cm. The 15 complications in 13 limbs included pin tract infection, knee stiffness, delayed union, skin irritation, and posterior knee subluxation. No complications occurred in nine limbs. Computer-assisted femoral deformity correction with six-axis deformity analysis and the TSF is an accurate and safe technique in children and young adults.

A comparative study of the correction of femoral deformity between the Ilizarov apparatus and Ortho-SUV frame

“…Simple deformities in most cases were presented by single shortening, in few cases there was single angulation and rotation. This corroborates other studies comparing other hexapods and traditional IA [3,11]. Dammerer et al compared results of deformity corrections performed with one of the most popular hexapods-the Taylor Spatial Frame (TSF)-versus traditional IA and the unilateral Orthofix fixator in a consecutive patient series with 135 bony deformity corrections [3].…”

Does the Taylor Spatial Frame Accurately Correct Tibial Deformities?

“…We did use different and the most relevant radiographic measurements [25,27,36] for proximal, middle, and distal groups, and we evaluated the groups separately for alignment (Tables 2-4) [12,17,31,34,41,43]. The TSF has been used for fracture treatment [4] and reconstruction of the tibia [8,10,11,14,23,24,28,40,44,45,47], ankle [22], femur [8,21,29], and upper extremity [38] in children and adults. Precise deformity correction and ease of use have been cited as advantages of the TSF [20,23,49].…”

Use of combined Taylor Spatial Frame (TSF) and Ilizarov for delayed treatment of femoral shaft fracture presented 6 weeks after injury—A case report

“…12,15,14,21,13 This case emphasized the importance of proper timing of surgical treatment femoral shaft fractures as well. Delay in initiation of the treatment may have bad outcome and poor patient's satisfaction.…”

“…19 The accuracy of TSF in correction of skeletal deformities had been reported by several authors. 12,15,14 Maragnoz et al 12 reported 22 femoral deformities in 20 patients treated with TSF. The mean age at surgery was 13.9 (5.9-24.6 years).…”