Syndactyly in children

The physical development of children is affected by many factors, and they are prone to various deformity symptoms, which bring great suffering to their lives. For example, syndactyly in children is a common symptom, which is mainly manifested as adhesion of fingers or abnormal number of fingers. It is very detrimental to the physical and psychological development of children. Let’s take a look at how to deal with syndactyly in children? I hope everyone can understand it.

Congenital syndactyly usually requires surgical treatment. The purpose of surgical correction of syndactyly is to establish a satisfactory finger web shape and avoid secondary flexion contracture of the fingers.

1. Timing of surgery The timing of treatment for syndactyly should be determined based on the form and degree of syndactyly, the general health of the child, the safety of anesthesia, and the requirements of the parents. After early surgery, the children's finger development speeds up, while after later surgery, the residual deformity is obvious. There are many variations in the blood vessels, nerves and tendons of complex syndactyly. If surgery is performed on a person who is too young, the operation will be more difficult and risky. Therefore, surgery should be performed after 3-4 years of age.

2. To completely perform the syndactyly, the syndactyly should be completely separated to the base of the normal finger webs. If the base of the finger webs is not completely separated, the fingers will still remain partially syndactyly. A normal finger web should have a slope-shaped skin fold of considerable width and length, accounting for 1/3-1/2 of the length of the proximal phalanx.

3. Reconstruction of finger webs The finger webs of normal adults start from the dorsal side of the distal end of the metacarpal bone and slope toward the palm side. They are connected to the palm skin at the transverse palmar crease and are about 1 cm wide. Good reconstruction of the finger web is a key during finger separation surgery. There are many surgical procedures for finger web formation. The more commonly used ones are paired triangular flaps on the dorsal and palmar sides of the base of the syndactyly, rectangular flaps, tongue-shaped skin grafts and unilateral triangular flap repairs. The two flaps are cross-sutured to form a new finger web.

4. The skin between the fingers should be separated and cut in a serrated shape to avoid straight incisions, otherwise, a linear scar contracture will form. When designing a serrated flap, the location of the flap needs to be designed according to different situations. Usually, the flap should cover the joint area as much as possible.