[The treatment of flexor tendon injuries in children].

Full functional recovery must always be the aim of flexor tendon reconstruction. This not only applies to adults, but particularly to infants. As customary, also in a child a severed flexor tendon should be attended immediately or with only a short delay. However, we definitively reject a bandaged fist of a hand and rather recommend demobilization by a modified Kleinert plaster. At the University Clinic for Paediatric Surgery in Graz over ten years ago we established a therapeutic protocol dedicated to infants, which we evaluated recently. In this study questions addressed were whether this treatment regimen is applicable for all age groups, notably whether the dynamic post operative treatment with a modified Kleinert plaster is always advisable. A total of 211 severed flexor tendons in children from nine months to 18 years (median 7 years) were treated. 193 lesions were either reconstructed immediately or within 48 hours. As a rule we apply the Kirchmayr-Zechner suturing procedure. We believe that the desired full mobility can thus be obtained within three months. In 95% of the 173 cases followed-up we achieved this goal with good or even excellent results according to Buck-Gramcko's criteria.