Over the past several decades of innovation and development, Ilizarov technique has been widely recognized and applied in correction of limb deformity and post-traumatic sequelae with outstanding clinical outcomes, which making remarkable contributions to the development of orthopaedics. There is no doubt that tissue regeneration induced by tension-stress is the core of Ilizarov technique, and a series of biological cascades contributing to tissue regeneration could be triggered by mechanical stimulation through signal transduction including bone morphogenetic proteins regulations, inflammatory responses and immune responses, angiogenic activities, stem/progenitor cell homing and other systematic effects. One of main limitations of Ilizarov technique is slow rate of new bone mineralization. To facilitate this technique application better in clinical practices, a multitude of researches of means for promoting bone mineralization have become hot spots in this field in recent years, such as physical measures, chemicals and biological therapies. With better understanding of distraction histogenesis for promoting tissue regeneration, transverse tibial bone transport has been increasingly applied to vascular disease management in lower extremity, such as diabetic foot and thromboangitis obliterans. This review focuses on the recent advances in understanding the basic biological mechanisms of Ilizarov technique and new methods for promoting bone consolidation in distraction areas, providing evidence and ideas for further mechanism investigations and approach innovations.