In an ideal world, nothing would interfere with long-bone growth plates in kids and adolescents. But physes are the weakest areas of the growing skeleton and are thus vulnerable to any number of injuries and insults. The most frequent complication resulting from growth-plate disturbances is premature arrest of bone growth that can lead to alignment problems and limb-length discrepancies.
The October 28, 2015 “Case Connections” from JBJS Case Connector highlights four case reports focused on tibial and femoral growth-plate disturbances. In two of the case reports, including the springboard case by Tomatsuri et al. from the October 28, 2015 edition of JBJS Case Connector, the injuries were associated with reconstruction of a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). The other two describe physeal injuries with infectious etiologies. The outcomes in all four case reports were positive because of careful and creative surgical interventions by highly skilled orthopaedists.