Osteochondral lesions of the ankle (i.e. lesions affecting the articular cartilage and the underlying bone, usually due to trauma), are often treated in a "biological" way in young patients: damaged tissues are regenerated by using the patient's own stem cells. 

However, this option is only valid for young patients with a limited size of lesion. Biological cartilage reconstruction is no longer effective, with increasing age, in case of excessively large and deep lesions or failed surgical treatments.

For the first time in the world, the ankle of a 9-year-old girl suffering from a very rare form of bone sarcoma was reconstructed with homoplastic bone and an extensible nail at the Regina Margherita Children's Hospital in Turin, by a team of orthopaedic surgeons from the Città della Salute Hospital in Turin and the Rizzoli Orthopaedic Institute in Bologna. Thanks to the surgery, the little patient will be able to walk again. The surgical procedure was performed by a team of orthopaedic surgeons coordinated by Dr.