ABSTRACT
Even so, the temptation to offer surgical lengthening as a panacea to ills arising from length inequality needs to be resisted. As with other aspects of surgery, appropriate patient selection is important. It is difficult to quantify a threshold above which surgical intervention is indicated as the functional disability produced from differences in arm length is largely dependent on the anticipated use of both arms. In the activities cited in the text above, arm length inequality may hinder performance; otherwise differences of as much as 5-6 cm can be tolerated without too much difficulty.
