Congenital Femoral Deficiency/Congenital Short Femur

Case Examples

A. Standing anteroposterior view radiograph of a 2-year-old boy with Type 1 congenital femoral deficiency (limb length discrepancy = 7 cm) and coxa vara. The neck shaft angle = 95° relative to the proximal shaft of the femur. The proximal femoral physis is relatively horizontally inclined. There is a diaphyseal varus of 20°.

B. Treatment by proximal femoral valgus external rotation osteotomy. The proximal coxa vara was not corrected, but the diaphyseal varus was corrected. The lengthening is performed through a distal femoral osteotomy. The lengthening is being performed with an Ilizarov apparatus. The external fixation extends to the tibia, with hinges to allow for knee motion.

C. Final standing anteroposterior view radiographs obtained after limb lengthening (7 cm).


D. Clinical photographs obtained when the patient was 7 years old. He underwent growth stimulation after lengthening and had a 1.5-cm leg length discrepancy at age 7 years.	E. Clinical photograph shows maximum knee flexion at age 7 years.

A. Anteroposterior view radiograph of the pelvis in a 3-year-old girl shows that the center edge angle = 11° on the short side and 15° on the long side. Both sides are dysplastic. The minimal normal center edge angle that is safe for lengthening is 20°.

B. Anteroposterior view radiograph of pelvis shows that the center edge angle = 35° after a Dega osteotomy that was performed before lengthening of the femur.

Sinai Hospital Baltimore, MD	Reisterstown Reisterstown, MD	Owings Mills Owings Mills, MD	Towson Towson, MD

Eldersburg Eldersburg, MD	Westminster Westminster, MD	Northwest Hospital Randallstown, MD	Timonium Timonium, MD

LifeBridge Health Locations

Sinai Hospital	Northwest Hospital	Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital	Courtland Gardens Nursing & Rehabilitation Center	LifeBridge Health & Fitness
Additional Centers
LifeBridge Health	Practice Dynamics, Inc, PDI	VSP