Primary peripheral nerve repair in the hand and upper extremity

A small consecutive series of primary nerve repairs in civilian injuries demonstrates that normal two-point discrimination and stereognosis can be anticipated not only in digital-nerve injuries but in mixed sensory and motor nerve injuries. Motor return follows and approaches normal in most patients. During the study period, 15 delayed repairs of mixed nerve lacerations were done. Two-point discrimination and stereognosis did not return to normal in any of the patients with mixed-nerve injuries or in one quarter of those with sensory-nerve injuries. Motor return never graded better than 3 on a scale of 0-4. Therefore, this author feels primary repair is superior to secondary repair and that almost all civilian injuries can be made surgically clean by debridement.