From the perspective of parents, parents also want their children to have a complete hand. From the perspective of children's social psychology, reservation is also of great significance. If the child has only four fingers, the child may be unwilling to play games and participate in activities in kindergarten. This situation does exist. Maybe the child is too young to express his feelings clearly, but floating thumb does have an impact on the child's mental health. This is also the original intention and reason why many parents ask me for surgery.
The first surgical method of floating thumb is to remove it, which is very simple and rude. After taking it, do thumb pointing, use finger as thumb, do palm-to-palm posture, then shorten the length and rebuild the tiger's mouth. This method was quite effective at that stage.
With the development of medicine and the continuous improvement of surgical techniques, our doctors and parents have a request. Can we keep our thumbs? A professor put forward a plan for metatarsal reconstruction. We have done a lot of work on this plan, but there are still some problems, such as the possibility of bone graft absorption and necrosis, and the residual surgical scar on the foot.
On this basis, we began to look for a better solution to floating thumb. In the last three or four years, what we have done is hemimetacarpal transplantation and reconstruction. If the metacarpal bone is transplanted and reconstructed, the child's foot will not be affected, the probability of bone resorption and necrosis will be greatly reduced, and the postoperative appearance and function will be satisfactory. According to our follow-up, after one or two years, the width and length of donor metacarpal bones are good for school-age children. This is a summary of our experience so far.