Dwarf, 13, Undergoes New Surgery to Lengthen Legs

A 13-year-old dwarf underwent an operation today to lengthen his legs in a surgical process used on a growing youth for the first time in the United States.

Juan Garcia’s doctors at Orlando Medical Center said that there were no complications and that the boy was awake in the recovery room.

“Juan tolerated the surgery beautifully,” Dr. Chad Price said.

The boy is a sixth-grader from Altamonte Springs, Fla.

Hospital spokesman Joe Brown said Garcia is 3 feet, 10 inches tall. If the process is successful, Garcia’s height will increase to 4 feet, 6 inches in the next 18 months.

The surgery was done by Dr. L. Renzi Brivio of Italy and Price, an Orlando surgeon who learned the technique this year in Verona, Italy.

Brown said the Verona Technique, which was developed in Europe in 1979, has several advantages over the the Wagner Method, the most common U.S. procedure.

In the Wagner Method, which lengthens the leg only one to three inches, the lower leg bones are cut and a bone graft is inserted and held in place by a clamp. But Brown said infections, nerve and tissue damage and other complications occur in 60% to 80% of the patients.

In the Verona Technique, which has only a 20% complication rate, a cut is made in the leg bones between the knee and ankle and an adjustable metal clamp is placed around the cut.

The natural healing over of the bones produces a callus called the growth plate. The metal clamp is widened about half an inch per week, allowing the growth plate to lengthen the leg over time, Brown said.

“The novelty is, because it is slow and deliberate and no grafting is done, everything is able to heal in progression, symmetrically if you will,” he said.