We describe a technique that arose from the observation of the clinical outcome of failed arthrodeses of the thumb carpometacarpal joint. In these cases a pseudoarthrosis developed which, surprisingly, rarely lead to a poor clinical outcome. Thus we developed a simple technique which deliberately caused the formation of a narrow pseudoarthrosis in the carpometacarpal joint. We present a retrospective review of 248 consecutive patients treated for Eaton stages II and III osteoarthritis. We observed a statistically significant improvement in mean appositional and oppositional pinch strength, mean DASH score (63.8 pre-operatively to 10.5 at final follow-up), and the mean pain score (8.3 to 0.2). We conclude that trapeziometacarpal limited excision arthroplasty is a simple and reliable alternative to existing surgical techniques for treating Stage II or III thumb carpometacarpal joint arthritis.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.