Clasped Thumb Follow Up

I have posted several times on clasped thumb, a rare condition in which the muscles that straighten the thumb are slow to develop and the thumb rests across the thumb.  It must be differentiated from several other diagnoses included trigger thumb and spastic thumb (in which the tight muscles pull the thumb down).  Here are links to the other two posts: Post 1 and Post 2.

In, this post, I wanted to briefly share the early results after surgical treatment for clasped thumb.  Surgery is usually not required.  In most cases, support in the form of a soft splint or hard splint allow the thumb muscles time to develop.  However, for the rare child, those muscles don't develop and we perform a tendon transfer- where we move a muscle/ tendon from one position to the thumb to improve the strength of extension.  Good results are expected and, at early follow- up, here at 3 months, good results have been obtained.  Remember, it is not easy to capture pictures of a very active 2 year old but I believe we can see the results!

Patient doing well after clasped thumb surgery

Excellent thumb straightening 3 months after clasped thumb surgery.

Charles A. Goldfarb, MD

My Bio at Washington University
congenitalhand@wudosis.wustl.edu