Local Impairment or Speeding of Enchondral Growth

Abstract

Generalized impairment of bone growth, from dysplasia, metabolic bone disease, illness/malnutrition, or hormone dysfunction, is both generalized and systematic in slowing growth proportionate to the normal rates of enchondral growth. In this chapter, we consider local impairment. If, for example, growth is slowed in one lower extremity and not the other, unequal leg lengths would lead to a limp. Similarly, local increase in growth leads to unequal length.