No man's land revisited: the primary flexor tendon repair controversy

New surgical procedures, novel concepts, and/or the presentation of very good results with an apparently discredited technique meet varying degrees of resistance among the establishment of any profession. In hand surgery this phenomenon was exemplified in a striking fashion with the presentation of a controversial report entitled, "Primary repair of flexor tendons in no man's land" by Kleinert, Kutz, Ashbell, and Martinez of Louisville, KY, at the 1967 American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH) annual meeting. The discussant, Joseph Boyes, expressed such skepticism that a special ASSH committee was appointed to go to Louisville and review the results to determine if they were as good as claimed. They were, and today primary flexor tendon repair is the procedure of choice for most flexor tendon lacerations.