Analysis of traumatic flexor tendon injuries: A single-center experience

Abstract

Flexor tendon injuries cause serious work and health losses. Studies on flexor tendon injuries have generally focused on treatment modalities. The study's goal is to retrospectively screen the cases admitted to a single center and reveal in detail the causes of injury and the patients' sociodemographic characteristics. The study included 120 patients who applied to our center between January 2015 and December 2017 with a flexor tendon injury and underwent surgery on the same day. We investigated the patients' age, gender, and hand dominance as demographic characteristics. We classified the injury characteristics as the mechanism of the injury, the nature of the injury, the identity and number of affected fingers, the injured area and side, the number of involved tendons, the accompanying fractures, the nerve injury, and the vascular injury. As surgical details, we evaluated the type of anesthesia and the duration of the surgery. We identified 171 flexor tendons and 120 patients, of which 85% (n=102) were male and 15% (n=18) were female. Home accidents caused 26.6% of the injuries (32/120). Most patients had a single finger injury (88/120, 73.3%). Injuries were most common in Zone 2 (61/171, 35.6%). Patients with vascular and nerve injuries, along with flexor tendon injuries, were in the majority (48%). Our study provides detailed sociodemographic information about flexor tendon injuries. Because this study sheds light on injury mechanisms, it will serve as a guide for preventing such injuries. [Med-Science 2024; 13(3.000): 644-8]

Keywords

• flexor tendon injury
• aetiology
• trauma
• mechanism
• hand