The congenital brachymetatarsia is usually involved in the 4th toe.
The pathogenesis of this disease has not been elucidated yet; however, the growth failure of metatarsal bone is thought to be the main cause.
Although the brachymetatarsia may not cause severe functional disabilty, it disturbs the aesthetic appearance of foot with normal parabolic contour;this is especially distressing to young women who wish to expose their feet in public.
There only a few reports concerning the treatment of brachymetatarsia : method using external traction(Walter, 1981),inducing pseudoarthrosis by spindle-shaped bone graft(Jinnaka, 1972). interposition of bone graft into the metatarsal shaft (McGlamry, 1983), and etc.
We have experienced I I cases of the brachymetatarsia in 6 patients during the last two years. We modified Buck-Gramcko´s method, a method to correct the brachymetacarpia by means of iliac bone grafting and applied the modified technique to correction of 3 cases of the 4th toe brachymetatarsia; the results showed gratifying outcome in aesthetic as well as in functional aspect.
In this paper wo would like to present the results of our long term follow-up of the patients, detailed operative techniques and related bibliographical review.
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