Comparison of wire versus Nylon in Bonny-Mallet Finger treated with pull-out surgery

Zone I extensor tendon lesion accompanies an avulsion fracture of the bone insertion. A common complication of traditional pull-out is the necrosis of the site of the button in the finger pad. Zhang described an alternative way of anchoring the cerclage to the Kirschner Wire (K-wire) to relieve the pressure in the finger pad. He describes the use of wire cerclage, for fracture reduction. The objective of this paper is to perform a comparison between wire and nylon using Zhang pull-out technique.

We performed a cohort study comparing Nylon versus Wire in Zhang technique. Comparing cosmetic satisfaction, stiffness, residual pain, and Crawford scale.

When comparing the outcomes between both groups, we found no statistical difference in cosmetic satisfaction (p = 0.285), stiffness (p = 0.460), and residual pain (p =1.000), overall complications (p = 1.000), or Crawford scale (p = 1.000). We only found a significant statistical difference in pain when removing the cerclage, being greater in Group B (p = 0.008).

We found no significant outcome difference between nylon and wire cerclage. However, at the time of removing it, patients experience less pain.