This young patient had an unfortunate injury which, despite his doctors’ best efforts, resulted in this non-union with mal-position of his tibia. It followed on an open fracture which he had sustained.

A non-union like this is of course unsightly, but is also quite painful and can make it very difficult to stand, walk or perform very basic activities.

From the work of Ilizarov, the father of limb reconstruction, we know that stabilisation and distraction using a fine wire external fixator heals the majority of these non-unions with a single operation. We have since seen the same high success rates in our patients and have published our results in the scientific literature as well.

By applying a circular external fixator and slowly straightening the deformity with closed distraction, we were able to heal Mr M’s non-union in 3 and a half months.

He was able to walk on the device from the second day after surgery and he is extremely happy to be back at work.