Contrary Intermittent Skin Release of Complete Syndactyly Without Skin Graft in Adults

Abstract

There are many different surgical treatment techniques of complete syndactyly. Most of them are techniques involving using skin grafts. We developed a surgical technique that does not require skin grafts, which cause problems in the distal nail border pulp and interdigital web space. Syndactyly release was performed in 12 web spaces of 11 adult male patients. The average age was 21. In addition to a zig-zag incision, contrary intermittent skin release was performed. Primary coverage of the interdigital web space and nail border pulp was achieved without skin graft. We obtained good results by the contrary intermittent skin release method that we developed, in adult complete syndactyly patients who had no chance for the surgical treatment due to several reasons, previously. With such a surgical technique, in our cases we obtained successful results, both cosmetic and functional. The presented technique is an alternative method for syndactyly release without using skin graft in adult patients.