Very Distal Radius Wedge Osteotomy for Kienböck's Disease: Case Series.

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Radius osteotomy is one of the standard surgical procedures for the treatment of Kienböck's disease. Unfortunately, radius osteotomy can result in an incongruous distal radio-ulnar joint (DRUj) postoperatively, because the procedure is performed proximal to the DRUj. A very distal radius wedge osteotomy was performed as a 15-degree lateral closing wedge osteotomy with the apex of the wedge distal to that of conventional lateral closing wedge osteotomy; this procedure was developed to avoid postoperative incongruous DRUj. We performed this procedure on 6 patients (stage III-A: 1, stage III-B: 5) with a mean age of 49 years. Clinical and radiographic evaluations were performed at a mean follow-up of 32 months. Wrist pain disappeared in all patients. Mean grip strength improved from 35% to 87% of the contralateral side (p = 0.0255). Mean range of motion, measured as flexion-extension arc, improved from 93 to 128 degrees. Nakamura's score was good in all patient. Mean lunate covering ratio increased from 61% to 90% (p = 0.0151) and mean sigmoid notch inclination angle, a radiographic parameter of DRUj congruency, was not significantly different between pre-operative and final follow-up evaluation. No clinical or radiographic DRUj osteoarthritis findings were observed. Our procedure of very distal radius wedge osteotomy provided satisfactory clinical results without an incongruous DRUj. This technique might prevent the occurrence of postoperative DRUj osteoarthritis.