The latest collaboration of doctors and mechanical engineers
has produced a new type of prosthesis that stretches and lengthens damaged legs
without the need for painful surgery and long periods of rehabilitation.
Dubbed the “bionic bone,” the noninvasive device has been
used in the United States and England on victims of osteosarcoma, a rare form
of bone cancer that affects children and young adults. One form of limb salvage
uses an external source of energy to move a spring embedded in soft leg tissue
to stretch the limb, thus allowing the affected limb to grow at the same rate
as the normal leg.
Doctors believe that the new device represent significant
medical progress over traditional modular prosthetics, which require multiple
surgeries for incremental leg lengthening resulting in long periods of rehab.
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