Background: Flexor tendon injury is one of the unanswered problems in reconstructive surgery of the hand. Although pull out method is one of the best reconstructive approaches but still is controversial. Surgeons prefer immobilization to prevent laceration at the site of the suture but it may cause adhesion and lead to surgical failure. The aim of this study was to perform a new surgical method to achieve a tendon repair without these problems.
Methods: In this case-series study, 80 fingers with flexor tendon impairment selected and divided into four groups (tendon laceration & avulsion, tendon graft reconstructed in 1 & 2 stages) then patients were surgically treated by the new technique. The most important aspect of the technique is the placement of the suture in the direction of strength therefore, following any tension the suture would be tighter and this point help us to mobilize the injured tendon immediately after the surgery then we analyzed the results depends on the patient's group.
Results: The pull out and surgical (functional) results were evaluated. 97% of the pull out results were good and 3% were poor and surgical results were 23.9% excellent, 52.2% good, 17.9% fair and 6% poor.
Conclusion: Depend on the acceptable results, immobilization in these patients is unnecessary & active and passive range of motion would be gradually increased as soon as possible. However biomechanical studies would be beneficial to evaluate this suture influence and designing future studies to compare this technique with old methods would be essential.