Clinical Example: Correction bilateral triphalangeal thumbs
| This infant has
recovered from neonatal repairs of life threatening
cardiac defects, and is declared fit enough to "fix her
hands". This particular situation falls somewhere between the five fingered hand (absent true thenar development, adducted, not pronated) and a pure triphalangeal thumb. The middle phalanx is a delta phalanx, and could have been treated with excision, although there is disagreement in the literature about how well that procedure works. |
| Click on each image for a larger picture |
| Left hand: |
| Immediately preop. |
| Immediately preop. |
| Immediately
postop. |
| Immediately preop. |
| Immediately postop. |
| Right hand. |
| Immediately preop. |
| Immediately preop. |
| Immediately postop. |
| The same type of procedure was performed on both hands at the same setting. This included a shortening/straightening proximal interphalangeal joint fusion and a shortening/pronating/abducting metacarpal osteotomy, along with extensor tendon shortening. Bone fixation at each site was with an intramedullary absorbable pin and intraosseous PDS sutures. Red areas are the areas of skeletal removal. |
| Six months postop. |
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Triphalangeal thumb |
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