The eponym Monteggia fracture-dislocation originally referred to a fracture of the shaft of the ulna accompanied by anterior dislocation of the radial head that was described by Giovanni Battista Monteggia of Italy in 1814. Subsequently, a further classification system based on the direction of the radial head dislocation and associated fractures of the radius and ulna was proposed by Jose Luis Bado of Uruguay in 1958. This article investigates the evolution of treatment, classification, and outcomes of the Monteggia injury and sheds light on the lives and contributions of Monteggia and Bado.

Synopsis A local flap consists of skin and subcutaneous tissue that is harvested from a site nearby a given defect while maintaining its intrinsic blood supply. When a soft tissue defect of the hand is not amenable to primary closure or skin grafting, local skin flaps can be a used as a reliable source of soft tissue replacement that replaces like with like. Flaps are categorized based on their composition, method of transfer, flap design and blood supply, yet flap circulation is considered the most critical factor for the flap survival. This article reviews the classification of local skin flaps of the hand and offers a practical reconstructive approach for several soft tissue defects of the hand and digits.

Therapeutic, IV.

Hand aesthetics in general and aesthetic refinements of soft-tissue coverage of the hand in particular have been increasingly considered over the past few years. Advancements of microsurgery together with the traditional methods of tissue transfer have expanded the armamentarium of the reconstructive surgeon, thus shifting the reconstructive paradigm from simply ‘filling the defect’ to reconstructive refinement to provide the best functional and aesthetic results. However, drawing the boundary between what does and what does not constitute ‘aesthetic’ reconstruction of the hand is not straightforward. The selection amongst the vast amount of currently available reconstructive methods and the difficulties in objectively measuring or quantifying aesthetics has made this task complex and rather arbitrary. In this article we divide the hand into several units and subunits to simplify our understanding of the basic functional and aesthetic requirements of these regions that may ultimately bring order to complexity.