title: Trapeziometacarpal narrow pseudarthrosis: a new surgical technique to treat thumb carpometacarpal joint arthritis.
abstract: We describe a technique that arose from the observation of the clinical outcome of failed arthrodeses of the thumb carpometacarpal joint. In these cases a pseudoarthrosis developed which, surprisingly, rarely lead to a poor clinical outcome. Thus we developed a simple technique which deliberately caused the formation of a narrow pseudoarthrosis in the carpometacarpal joint. We present a retrospective review of 248 consecutive patients treated for Eaton stages II and III osteoarthritis. We observed a statistically significant improvement in mean appositional and oppositional pinch strength, mean DASH score (63.8 pre-operatively to 10.5 at final follow-up), and the mean pain score (8.3 to 0.2). We conclude that trapeziometacarpal limited excision arthroplasty is a simple and reliable alternative to existing surgical techniques for treating Stage II or III thumb carpometacarpal joint arthritis.
authors.affiliation: Orthopaedic Department, Università degli Studi di Milano, Instituto Ortopedico Galeazzi IRCCS, Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rubino
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Civani
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pagani
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Sansone
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001174:Arthrodesis / Q000009:adverse effects; D001178:Arthroplasty / Q000379:methods*; D052737:Carpometacarpal Joints; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010003:Osteoarthritis / Q000601:surgery*; D052581:Pinch Strength; D011542:Pseudarthrosis / Q000209:etiology* / Q000601:surgery; D016059:Range of Motion, Articular; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013933:Thumb; D051222:Trapezium Bone; D016896:Treatment Outcome