When should I have surgery for finger and toe deformities?

  Congenital malformation of the fingers is one of the congenital malformations with a high incidence, including multiple fingers, parallel fingers, missing fingers, short fingers, split hands, and other various malformations, some of which are complicated to treat and require repeated surgeries. Some of these deformities are complicated to treat and require repeated surgeries. Some of these deformities do not have good treatments at the current medical level.  When a child is found to have a deformity or limb after birth, every parent will be anxious to find out whether surgery is possible, when the surgery is best, and where the most reliable physician is to perform the surgery.  There are many physicians who do hand and foot deformities in China, mainly hand surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, plastic surgeons and pediatric surgeons. The most traditional hand deformity surgery is mainly for polydactyly and syndactyly, which are relatively common and simple to operate and have better results. Many physicians are at their wits’ end when it comes to complex missing fingers and short finger deformities, and conceptually they think there is no surgical value, or they think they should grow up and do toe transplantation and reconstruction, or finger lengthening and finger transposition.  In fact, the international consensus is that pediatric finger reconstruction surgery is theoretically more effective the earlier the surgery is done, the younger the brain function, the better and faster the plasticity. If you do it after the age of 4 or 5, some of the deformities and finger reconstruction will not be used by the child, and the brain is already accustomed to the functional state of the original mutilated state, so it is difficult to exercise to correct it.  Based on the above analysis, surgical intervention should be performed within one week of age for finger deformities, and not later than two weeks of age. Even some deformities that do not affect development and function should be done as early as possible. For example, syndactyly usually does not affect the function of the fingers, however, many syndactyly within one year of age do not require skin grafting after finger splitting, and the skin of infants and children is very lax, so when finger splitting surgery is done in childhood, a lot of skin grafting is often required.  Many complex multifinger defects and short deformities should also be operated on within two or three years of age. Reconstruction of the thumb and one or two fingers should be done as early as possible, even if the reconstructed fingers may be incomplete in terms of knuckle and development, so that the pediatrician can get used to using the reconstructed thumb for palmar-to-finger function as early as possible. Of course hand surgeons with skilled microsurgery techniques can also reconstruct fingers with toe grafts within two or three years of age. Many foreign and Hong Kong hand deformity masters advocate early toe transplantation and reconstruction, so that the functional recovery is much better. I have done more than ten cases of toe transplantation and reconstruction of fingers at the age of two or three, all of which have been successfully completed, which requires a very skilled hand surgery team to complete microsurgery. Without skilled microsurgery, the risk of failure is high, so domestic physicians basically ask children to consider reconstruction after the age of six or seven.  There are many parents who believe that the finger is already broken and do not want to sacrifice the normal toe to reconstruct the finger. Depending on the deformity, there are ways to do this, such as tiger mouth deepening, finger web deepening and splitting, finger transposition, splicing of stumped fingers, staged lengthening of stumped fingers, including some hemiphyseal grafts without sacrificing the toes, which have growth and developmental functions. There are many ways to improve some hand functions, but not to reconstruct the fingertips and nails, which is still somewhat defective compared to pedicle transplantation.