After thumb duplication: a proposal for evaluation of the result

Thumb duplication is the second most common congenital hand anomaly after syndactyly [Cohen MS (1998) Hand Clin 14(1):17; Dobyns JH, Wood VE, Bayne LG (1993) In: Green DP (ed) Operative Hand Surgery. Churchill and Livingstone, New York, pp 251–549]. To gain a functional and aesthetically acceptable thumb, surgical treatment is necessary in almost all cases. Many articles have been written on classification systems, surgical treatment and factors influencing outcome. However, literature on evaluating the results of surgical treatment is scarce. Using a mixture of criteria as described by Cheng et al., Townsend et al. and Tada et al., we developed a scoring system that enables an objective comparison of treatment results. We performed surgical correction of the duplicated thumb on 15 patients with various anomalies. Eleven had good results immediately, three had good outcomes after secondary surgery, and one patient had a normal result. It was not possible to compare our results with the results described in other studies due to a lack of similar criteria.