Five-year experience in the treatment of syndactyly and polydactyly of the hand with respect to satisfaction of patient parents

Outcomes of surgical treatment of hand syndactyly and polydactyly in childhood can be measured by objective methods or bysubjective impression of the patient’s parents. We performed a 5-year retrospective study of the treatment of 47 patients with eithersyndactyly or polydactyly of the hands over a telephone questionnaire. Response rate to the questionnaire was 68%. Thirty (94%)parents did not report any kind of functional impairment, whereas two (6%) parents stated that their children had diffi culties whilewriting. Eight (25%) parents described stiff ness of the operated fi ngers, of which only two (6%) had diffi culties in adjustment to everydaylife. Parents of six patients (19%) were not satisfi ed with the scar and two (6%) parents had sought second opinion in anotherhospital. Parents of the patients in whom we had performed correction of radial polydactyly reported worst results in terms of stiff -ness of the fi ngers, which is consistent with the available literature data. The satisfaction of patient’s parents largely depends on thesurgical scar appearance.Key words: syndactyly, radial polydactyly, ulnar polydactyly, children, outcome

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