Obviously the syndactyly, one of the most common congenital anomalies of the hand, should be corrected to carry out the normal fine hand motion before preschool age, and it’s very important in the surgery that the postoperative complications due to contracted scar should be minimized and so the patients can be used their hands normally.
We reviewed the 48 syndactyly of 21 patients, which were treated at our department from 1979 to 1985. The purpose of this article is evaluation of the results of surgical management using dorsal and palmar triangular flaps, zig-zag incisions and skin graft.
The results were summarized as follows;
1. The distribution of syndactyly in this series was 76% in males and 24% in females.
2. Syndactyly occurred most commonly at the 3rd web space (47.9%).
3. The combined congenital anomalies with syndactyly were 4 polydactyly, 2 Poland’s syndromes, 2 cleft palates, one cleft foot, one congenital constriction band and one cryptorchism.
4. We’ve followed these patients for average 6.5 months after the surgical management, and their function and external appearances of the hands were evaluated comparing with the opposite normal hands. The results of 44 among the 48 repairs were relatively good, and only 4 cases were unsatisfactory which required secondary surgical revision. The all 4 unsatisfactory cases developed in patients which were corrected before the age of 2 years.
Conclusively, authors advocate the principle that the optimum age of corrective operation for syndactyly is 4∼6 years, except for the cases expected to retard the growth of involved digits or complex type of syndactyly.
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