Functional Outcome After Tendon Transfer for High Radial Nerve Injury
Keywords:
Wrist drop, Radial nerve palsy, tendon transfer.Abstract
Background:
Wrist drop is one of the common problems that face orthopedic surgeons in practice,
which mostly caused by radial nerve injury. Tendon transfer surgery is a surgical procedure designed
to enhance hand function by transferring a working tendon from its original attachment to a new one,
therefore restoring the lost motion following a radial nerve lesion.
Objectives: The purpose of the study was to review the outcome of tendon transfer in patients with
wrist drop resulted from high radial nerve palsy, also to compare between two protocols of tendon
transfer.
Patients and methods:
A Twelve patients complains of wrist drop following radial nerve injury treated
surgically in alwasity hospital for reconstructive surgeries with tendon transfer using either flexor carpi
ulnaris ( FCU ) or flexor carpi radialis (FCR) in part of standard protocol and according to surgeon
preference , and followed during period from February 2010 to October 2012, 10 of those patient
were male and 2 female , all had a history of an injury to the radial nerve ; shell traumatic injury in 10
cases and 2 are iatrogenic Injury ,the mean age is 22 years ,patient were evaluated clinically using the
method described by Bincaz,and the power of grip was also tested.
Results:
After a period of follow up ranged from 4 to 32 months, 4 patients had excellent outcome, 5
patients had good outcome ,3 patients had fair outcome according to bincaz grading system,
significant functional improvement achieved in all patients, we found no great difference between the
two groups with regard to Bincaz scoring system parameters, with no significant complication
attributable to the operation was noted.
Conclusion:
The true evaluation of the problem and follow the principle of tendon transfer will lead to
accurate treatment to create a stable, functioning hand, the two different protocols gave efficient
result in terms of mobility and subjective satisfaction, FCR transfer can be done through single incision
with less dissection and less scar which can be regarded as an advantage over the FCU transfer.
