Dr. Franz have you ever considered doing a small study on the athletic recovery of stature (CLL) patients?
Right now we only have a study by Dr. Lee from South Korea which involved a sort of questioner to his former patient who underwent LON and/or LATN tibia from what I remember. But having a study with actual testing, maybe looking at statistical differences between tibia and femur patients and also by lengthening amounts could be very interesting.
Assuming somehow the sample size would be statistically relevant couldn’t one do a physical test with simple exercises for patients who have completed the procedure years ago?
One should of course be careful that factors like age and fitness level do not contaminate the results. Therefore maybe studying the gait (how people walk or run), joint flexibility and range of motion. However one could also maybe do a running exercise or muscle strength test and then use statistical methods like factor analysis to take into account age, fitness level etc. to still have some results here.
I know it would be difficult to get enough patients to return to participate. Maybe a few at a time over many years if they were offered a paid holiday in South Africa? Maybe the Paley Institute is more equipped for such a thing though as I know they’ve almost made an industry out of CLL.