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Foot gigantism in children: causes, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment
Last reviewed: 07.07.2025
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ICD-10 code
Q87.3 Syndromes of congenital anomalies manifested by excessive growth (gigantism) in the early stages of development.
Symptoms of foot gigantism
Depending on the type of deformation, five variants of foot gigantism in children are distinguished: gigantism of the entire foot, its inner, middle, outer sections, and macrodactyly.
Treatment of foot gigantism
Treatment of lower limb deformities in patients with gigantism is an extremely complex and poorly developed problem.
Non-drug treatment
Conservative treatment of congenital gigantism of the feet in children is ineffective.
Surgical treatment
Various methods are used depending on the type of deformation. The optimal age for surgery is 6 months.
In case of total enlargement of the entire foot in young children, the following interventions are indicated: epiphysiodesis of the growth zones of the metatarsal bones in combination with their periostectomy and excision of the interosseous muscles to eliminate soft tissue obstacles to narrowing of the transverse arch of the foot. The rays brought together as a result are fixed with a tendon autograft cut from the long extensors of the II-III toes, which bends around the metatarsal bones in the form of a figure eight, and are firmly fixed with a nylon thread.
In case of total enlargement of the entire foot, when it reaches a disfiguring size, forced exarticulation of one or two most enlarged middle rays with wedge resection of the tarsal bones is indicated. Fixation is performed by osteosynthesis with an autotransplant introduced into the adjacent metatarsal bones and Kirschner wires. Epiphysiodesis of the remaining metatarsal bones and phalanges of the fingers, defatization and skin grafting are performed.
In case of isolated enlargement of one or several rays of the internal, middle or external sections, multi-stage operations are performed. The first stage is exarticulation of one of the most enlarged rays with wedge resection of the foot bones at the level of the middle section. The second and subsequent stages are shortening modeling resections of the phalanges of the fingers and metatarsal bones, aimed at reducing the longitudinal size of the foot, as well as longitudinal resections of the phalanges of the fingers and metatarsal bones, aimed at reducing the transverse size of the foot.
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