A Clinical Study of Trigger Thumb in Children

Journal of the Korean Society for Surgery of the Hand 2001;6(2):108-111.
Published online December 1, 2001.

Kwang-Suk Lee, Kwang-Jun Oh, Woo-Jin Yeo, In-Seok Mun

소아 방아쇠 무지의 임상적 고찰

이광석, 오광준, 여우진, 문인석

Abstract

Purpose
: We analyzed the clinical aspects of trigger thumbs of children and the results of treatments. Materials and Methods : A clinical evaluation was achieved about 57 cases, 48 children under 10 years age, who were treated in admission from May 1990 to April 2000. For 47 cases we tried operative treatment from the first time. For 3 patients, 6 cases with bilateral trigger thumbs detected at birth, we performed conservative management for thumbs of one side with minimal symptom and operative treatment for thumbs of the other side with severe symptom. For remaining 2 patients, 4 cases with congenital and bilateral trigger thumb, we performed operation after failure of conservative management. We graded results of treatments as good, fair or bad, according to the range of motion of thumbs and residual flexion deformity. Results : Male were 26 and female were 22 patients. There were 26 right hands (54.2%), 15 left hands (31.2%) and 7 both hands (14.6%). The average age of first detection was 2.7 years old. There were 7 patients (14.6%) detected at birth and five patients of them (71.4%) had bilateral trigger thumbs. The mean of age at operation was 3.1 years old. There were good results in 55 cases, fair in 2 cases. Conclusion : The trigger thumb is considered to be developmental disorder that occurs mainly unilaterally about 2 years age, rather than congenital disorder. We could get satisfactory results through operative treatment of developmental trigger thumbs.