Why is the femur often chosen over the tibia for limb lengthening?

Does femoral lengthening have any advantages over tibial lengthening?

Or do doctors prefer femoral lengthening?

Femur is a much stronger bones
lower risk of ballerina syndrom or no risk at all,
2 hours surgery time for femur (at Becker atleast)
and more than 4 hours for tibia

Simply put, it’s safer and there’s more lengthening potential.

Most LLers worldwide do external only tibias which is the safest, cheapest and most proven way to do LL.
Internals are almost only for first world countries and medium or more income citizens. Noone else has 40+k dollars for a cosmetic procedure.

For internals the femurs are indeed easier, consolidate faster and can give 1-2cm more that tibias in height. But generally speaking the vast majority does tibias with external only or at least combined methods (lon-latn).

The femurs are already more resistant but more sensitive at the same time. What comes to mind for many are the elongation figures but in reality the imperative thing is to remove them from the margin as quickly as possible to recover completely. LLRS who have had LL twice will understand.

On the other hand, a good strategy would be an internal method (the most expensive) for femurs and as BodyBuilder says above, leave the economical external method for the tibias that are more resilient.