Surgical approaches to the elbow.

The recent explosion of interest in the elbow and the need for better surgical approaches, has produced numerous new approaches and the modification of other approaches, the result of which is a much shorter but more useful list of surgical approaches. Surgeons who perform a large number of elbow procedures have found that these approaches permit them to perform the majority of elbow procedures with only one skin incision, usually a straight posterior midline incision. Knowledge of the deep intermuscular and internervous intervals allows the surgeon to expose the elbow circumferentially through one skin incision. This approach has been associated with fewer wound complications and has allowed immediate active motion of the elbow.