Treatment of unfavourable results of flexor tendon surgery: Ruptured repairs, tethered repairs and pulley incompetence

As primary repair of divided flexor tendons becomes more common, secondary tendon surgery becomes largely that of the complications of primary repair, namely ruptured and adherent repairs. These occur with an incidence of each in most reported series world-wide of around 5%, with these problems having changed little in the last two decades, despite strengthening our suture repairs. Where the primary referral service is less well-developed, and as a more occasional occurrence where primary treatment is the routine, the surgeon faces different problems. Patients arrive at a hand unit variable, but longer, times after the primary insult, having had no, or bad, previous treatment. Sometimes the situation is the same, viz. an extended finger with no active flexion, but now no longer amenable to primary repair. Frequently, it is much more complex as a result of injuries to the other tissues of the digit and, also, as a result of the unaided healing process within the digit in the presence of an inactive flexor system. We present our experience in dealing with ruptured repairs, tethered repairs and pulley incompetence.