gms | German Medical Science

14th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand (IFSSH), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT)

17.06. - 21.06.2019, Berlin

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Long head of triceps transfer to gain elbow flexion in 25 patients

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  • presenting/speaker Atakan Aydin - Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey
  • Omer Berkoz - Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey
  • Zeynep Hosbay - Biruni University, Istanbul, Turkey
  • Safiye Ozkan - Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey

International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand. International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy. 14th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand (IFSSH), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT). Berlin, 17.-21.06.2019. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2020. DocIFSSH19-850

doi: 10.3205/19ifssh1140, urn:nbn:de:0183-19ifssh11404

Published: February 6, 2020

© 2020 Aydin et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Outline

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Objectives/Interrogation: Elbow flexion is the most important function of the upper extremity, hence loss of this function leads a major disability. Elbow flexion deficit can be seen in both congenital (arthrogryposis)and acquired (traumatic /obstetric brachial plexus palsy) conditions. We describe our results for the surgical tecnique of transfer of the long head of triceps transfer in traumatic and congenital cases.

Methods: We performed this transfer in 25 patients, ages between 2-45 years. The nine adult patients were suffering from traumatic brachial plexus injury while 16 young patients were artrogrypotic or obstetric palsy sequela. We achieved 85-115 degrees of elbow flexion in obstetric and traumatic plexus patients while preserving elbow extansion and 60-90 degrees of elbow flexion in arthrogrypotic patients.

Results and Conclusions: All patients were happy to gain hand to mouth function, elbow extansion deficit is acceptable in acquired cases while in arthrogrypotic cases since shoulder abduction is not expected, partial triceps power loss almost never effects daily living.

Although there are many muscle transfer methods (lat dorsi, pectoralis etc) to reanimate elbow flexion, we conclude that long head of triceps tranfer is a reliable tecnique in both acquired and congenital cases.