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Published in: HAND 1/2014

01-03-2014

Idiopathic avulsion of the flexor pollicis longus: Case report and review of the literature

Authors: I. J. Behr, J. T. Behr

Published in: HAND | Issue 1/2014

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Excerpt

Atraumatic closed rupture of the flexor pollicis longus (FPL) tendon is uncommon. When it occurs, it is usually associated with a recognizable pathologic etiology. Cited contributing factors for FPL tendon rupture include rheumatoid arthritis [3, 9, 29], Colles’ fracture [6, 21, 27, 39], exostosis of the distal radius [10], scaphoid exostosis [10, 26, 29], ulnar metacarpophalangeal joint sesamoid osteophyte [36, 37], interphalangeal sesamoid osteophyte [34], scaphoid nonunion [7, 18, 19, 28, 32, 35, 40, 42], Kienböck's disease [14], lunate silicone replacement degradation [5], intratendinous corticosteroid injection [30], retained glass fragments [13], migration of a retained foreign body [41], intratendinous tumor proliferation [16], and mucopolysaccharidosis [38]. …
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Metadata
Title
Idiopathic avulsion of the flexor pollicis longus: Case report and review of the literature
Authors
I. J. Behr
J. T. Behr
Publication date
01-03-2014
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
HAND / Issue 1/2014
Print ISSN: 1558-9447
Electronic ISSN: 1558-9455
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11552-013-9549-y

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