A Brief History of Tendon Transfer and, Specifically, the Opposition Tendon Transfer

The development of tendon transfers is it relatively recent evolution in orthopedic surgery. Drobnik performed the first upper extremity tendon transfer in 1894 for a patient with radial nerve palsy, which marks the beginning of a field that developed rapidly. By 1918, Steindler had performed his now famous "opponensplasty" in which he rerouted the flexor pollicis longus tendon to the radial base of the proximal pha- lanx. In the subsequent decades, numerous surgeons offered alternative methods to restore thumb opposition. Names now synonymous with hand surgery, such as Huber, Littler, Howell, Camitz, Royle, Bunnell, and Burkhalter, would all leave a mark on the history of opposition transfers. In this review we discuss the history of tendon surgery and trans- fers, focusing on the procedure of thumb opposition transfer.