Table 7.

Literature summary of classic lengthening

Study	Population	Design	Anatomic location	Type of external fixator	External fixation index	Technique details
Aston et al. [2]	27 children and adolescents	Case series	Femur	One Taylor Spatial FrameTM, the rest were classic Ilizarov frames	39.97 days/cm	Seven lengthenings were done over the Ruch nail
Blondel et al. [4]	36 children and adolescents	Prospective study	Tibia (26), femur (6), other (4)	All Taylor Spatial FramesTM	38.2 days/cm	67 deformities in three spatial planes also were corrected
Catagni et al. [5]	54 adults	Case series	Tibia	Hybrid (half-pins and wires) Ilizarov external fixator	40.7 days/cm	Bifocal tibia lengthening was performed
Kristiansen et al. [15]	47 children and adults	Retrospective	Tibia	20 patients treated with Taylor Spatial FrameTM, 27treated with Ilizarov fixator	2.4 months/cm for Taylor Spatial FrameTM, 1.8 months/cm for Ilizarov fixator	Proximal and distal tibia osteotomies were used
Lie & Chow [17]	Eight children and adults	Retrospective	Femur (5), tibia (9)	Ilizarov and monolateral external fixators	48 days/cm
Matsubara et al. [18]	28 children and adults	Retrospective	Tibia (17), femur (17)	Ilizarov fixator (21) and Taylor Spatial FrameTM (7)	58.6 days/cm with acute deformity correction and 42.5 days/cm for gradual deformity correction	A group that underwent acute deformity correction after lengthening was compared with a group that had gradual correction and lengthening
Nakase et al. [20]	10 children and adults	Case series	Tibia (6), femur (4)	Taylor Spatial FrameTM	57.8 days/cm
Song et al. [29]	14 children and adults	Retrospective	Tibia	Ilizarov external fixator	1.8 months/cm for classic group and 2.0 months/cm for nail group	Lengthening over a nail in three cases and classic lengthening in 11

Taylor Spatial Frame^TM (Smith and Nephew, Memphis, TN, USA).