Lengthening over a retrograde nail using 3 Schanz pins.

The technique of lengthening over an antegrade nail is used widely for distraction osteogenesis of the femur. Most reported complications of this technique are related to Schanz pins. We hypothesized that reducing the number of Schanz pins would enable successful distraction with fewer complications. To this purpose, we describe a new technique for lengthening over a retrograde nail using only 1 proximal and 2 distal Schanz pins.