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Sonographical parameters of the finger pulley system in healthy adults

  • Handsurgery
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Archives of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Introduction

To establish normative values of tendon to bone distances (TBDs) to evaluate the A2 and A4 annular pulley integrity, we hypothesized that these values correlate with gender, athletic exercise, occupation, individual’s age and body height.

Methods

Ultrasonography of 200 healthy individuals was performed prospectively. TBDs for the A2 and A4 pulley sections were measured for all fingers. Evaluation was performed in resting position and active forced flexion. Examination parameters included gender, age, body height, occupation, athletic exercise level, and hand dominance. Assessment of resting position and active forced flexion was done.

Results

No clinically relevant differences of TBDs with respect to the aforementioned parameters were observed. But TBDs were significantly greater in active forced flexion than in resting position for all measured pulley sections. Intraobserver reliability was very satisfactory.

Conclusions

Establishing normative values will help to detect injured pulleys more precisely and examination should be performed both in resting position and active forced flexion.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hand Surgery, Vulpius Klinik, Vulpiusstraße 29, 74906, Bad Rappenau, Germany

    Dominik Bassemir, Frank Unglaub, Peter Hahn & Christian K. Spies

  2. Medical Faculty Mannheim of the Ruprecht-Karls University Heidelberg, Theodor-Kutzer-Ufer 1–3, 68167, Mannheim, Germany

    Frank Unglaub

  3. Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, University Hospital Cologne, Kerpener Str. 62, 50937, Cologne, Germany

    Lars Peter Müller

  4. The Department of Medical Biometry and Informatics, Ruprecht-Karls University, Im Neuenheimer Feld 305, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany

    Thomas Bruckner

Authors
  1. Dominik Bassemir
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  2. Frank Unglaub
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  3. Peter Hahn
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  4. Lars Peter Müller
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  6. Christian K. Spies
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Correspondence to Christian K. Spies.

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All named authors hereby declare that they have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

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Bassemir, D., Unglaub, F., Hahn, P. et al. Sonographical parameters of the finger pulley system in healthy adults. Arch Orthop Trauma Surg 135, 1615–1622 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00402-015-2304-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00402-015-2304-9

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