A survey on management of chronic achilles tendon ruptures

No controlled trials regarding management of chronic Achilles tendon ruptures have been published. We conducted an online survey of orthopedic surgeons affiliated with US medical schools. One hundred twenty-seven surgeons responded, but not all responded to each survey question. Thirty-six percent had foot and ankle fellowship training. Nearly all respondents diagnosed tendon rupture by using palpation of the tendon gap (97%) and the Thompson calf-squeeze test (96%). The Matles test was used by 37% of respondents, with foot and ankle specialists nearly 5 times more likely to use it than nonspecialists (P<.001). For surgical repair of a ruptured tendon, most surgeons used the end-to-end Bunnell technique for gaps of a few centimeters, transitioning to the flexor hallucis longus procedure or V-Y tendinoplasty for larger gaps. Ninety-three percent of respondents used nonabsorbable sutures; absorbable suture use tended to increase with years of practice. Most surgeons (72%) preferred postoperative immobilization for up to 6 weeks and non-weight-bearing for up to 6 weeks (96%). In most instances, the responses of foot and ankle specialists did not differ significantly from those of other orthopedic surgeons, allowing generalization of the survey results to practice trends among all orthopedic surgeons. Practice trends tended to follow published expert opinions.