Percutaneous surgery: a safe procedure for trigger finger?
BACKGROUND
Trigger finger is relatively common problem among hand disorders. There are open and percutaneous surgical methods for the treatment.


OBJECTIVE
This study was designed to examine the mid-term results of the percutaneous surgical technique on patients with chronic trigger finger.


METHODS
We included 48 trigger fingers of 48 patients (36 females and 12 males). They were between the ages of 42-68 years (mean age, 52 years). We performed release of the trigger finger by using a 14-gauge needle via the percutaneous technique. We performed open surgery on the trigger fingers of 20 patients in order to evaluate the results obtained from percutaneous surgery. The patients were followed for 30 months on average (18-46 months) following the procedure.


RESULTS
Following the procedure, pain and locking of the fingers were resolved completely. On the fingers that had open surgery, we observed that the release of the pulley was successful. Only 2 patients had minor abrasions, without any tendon injury. During the follow-up period, no complications were reported in either of the patient groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Percutaneous surgical technique in the treatment of trigger finger is an effective, convenient and cost-effective method with a low complication rate, and is therefore a preferable alternative to open surgery.
Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Dicle University Medical Faculty, Diyarbakir, Turkey.
Bekir Yavuz
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