Background: Thumb tip and pulp defects might cause
serious morbidity for the patient. Loss of the highly specialised
and sensate pulp can have a major impact on overall hand
function in addition to the cosmetic abnormality.
Objective: To highlight the functional, aesthetic outcomes
and postoperative complication for these surgical techniques
in the treatment of thumb tip injuries.
Material and Methods: A comprehensive search of the
literature via electronic databases including Pub Med/ Medline,
Cochrane, Web of Science and Google Scholar. An initial
search was carried out using keywords: Thumb tip injury,
thumb tip amputation, Surgical flaps and Reconstruction.
Studies of different modalities were analyzed and compared
regarding the aesthetic outcome, sensory outcome, range of
motion and rate of complications. Hand surgeons were contacted
to help identifying other published and unpublished
relevant studies.
Results: The main point strength in the current study is
that we have systematically analyzed a wide range of local
and regional thumb tip reconstruction options.
Conclusion: Local and regional options are comparable
in terms of sensory, motor, and aesthetic scores, and patient
satisfaction. However local options are associated with significantly
higher complication rates