Purpose: The purpose of this work was to emphasise the contribution of the Illizarov technique for the treatment of leg nonunions.

Material and methods: Our series included 30 cases of post-traumatic nonunion of the leg treated by the Illizarov method between January 1990 and December 1998. The injury involved mainly active male subjects. Traffic accidents predominated. The nonunion was infected in 27% of the cases, misaligned in 70% and associated with a bone gap in 17%. The technique adopted in this series was pure compression in 24 patients, compression-distraction in two and compression-bifocal distraction in four.

Results: Bone healing was achieved in 93% of the patients with a mean time of 6.5 months. There were two failures due to technical flaws. The infection resolved and the bony gap closed in all patients. The overall outcome was satisfactory both anatomically and functionally in 87% of the cases.

Discussion: The Illizarov method constitutes a precious tool for the treatment of this complex and variable surgical situation. It allows bone healing, resolution of the infection, and correction of misalignment as well a closure of bone gaps and preservation of functional independence.