Brachymetatarsia

Brachymetatarsia is a congenital condition that results in one having a shortened metatarsal bone in the foot. Cosmetically the foot will appear with a shortened toe. Commonly it occurs on the 4th toe in which the 4th toe is shorter than the 3rd and fifth toe. Brachymetatarsia occurs more in females than males. It can by part of a syndrome of other conditions as well.

The question that people grapple with when affected with Brachymetatarsia is ” Should I have surgery to correct this condition? Is the surgery successful? ” This is a condition that is a structural deformity of the bone of the foot. It will not change by itself. One can choose to correct it for various reasons. The shortened bone can cause large painful calluses as well as other biomechanical issues that can cause you foot pain and discomfort. Also the foot can be very cosmetically displeasing. These are some of the reasons one would take into consideration while deciding if you wanted to have this condition corrected.

The ways to correct the foot and lengthen the bone have been done for many years and have a high success rate. One way is to cut the bone and put in a bone graft that brigs it out to length in a one shot surgery . This has some drawbacks, particularly the surrounding arteries and nerves can not tolerate a large pull on them in one shot. It can cause circulation and nerve damage to the toe to do it in one setting.

The other preferred method for surgical correction of brachymetatarsia is called the gradual lengthening technique. This method involves cutting the bone and applying a device that slowly pulls the bone apart (and arteries and neves , slowly) until the bone is at the proper length. The space is filled in with new bone supplied by the patients own healing abilities. This is called gradual correction or callus distraction. One can walk on their foot during this process,

It is very important to choose a well trained surgeon when deciding to undergo this correction. Here at the Advanced Foot and Ankle Center of San Diego , Dr Wrotslavsky is fellowship trained in limb lengthening and has many years of experience in these complex procedures.