Here is an example of a
patient that had a really short fourth toe. The technical term is called
brachymetatarsia and this is a condition where the toe is actually shortened in
the middle of the foot called the metatarsal bone. Since that area is too short, the toe looks
like a midget and so in order to treat this there are a lot of different
options. The option that we chose here is something called lengthening of the
metatarsal and we use something called an external fixator, which is this
little black device that goes on the top with a few little pins that go
inside. So what happens for this
patient, you actually make a little incision on top and you cut through the
bone in a proper position and you put two pins before the cut and two pins
after the cut and you put that little black device on there. Then every day you want to increase the
length about a millimeter until it’s out to the proper length, and you also see
in this picture, coming out of the toe there’s a little pin and that’s just to
hold the toe in the proper position so that it doesn’t cock up during this
process of lengthening this short toe or brachymetatarsia.
To Your Health,
Dr. Donald Pelto
