More thoughts on Pollicization

More thoughts on Pollicization The decision to proceed with pollicization is not easy.  It is most straightforward when the thumb is completely absent and is most difficult when the child has any thumb, as families very reasonably would like to keep and improve the small thumb rather than excise it and pollicize the index finger. […]

Radial Polydactyly

An extra thumb has been labeled many different ways: ‘radial polydactyly, thumb polydactyly, split thumb, and duplicated thumb’.  My preferred name is radial polydactyly as it tells you exactly the issue.  The term ‘duplicated thumb’ is not ideal as the thumbs are both smaller than normal but ‘split thumb’ is not perfect either because the […]

Symbrachydactyly

Taking the word literally, “sym” means joined (like “syn”), “brachy” means short and “dactyly” means finger= short, joined fingers.  However, symbrachydactyly comes in many different forms.  In fact, some forms of symbrachydactyly don’t have developed fingers at all.  We can classify symbrachydactyly in 4 basic types- these are helpful for discussion.  – Short finger type- fingers […]