Terminal limb congenital malformations: analysis of 523 cases

A total of 523 Japanese patients with terminal limb congenital malformations were reviewed for the characteristic features, and especially for type correlation between hand and foot anomalies. There were 281 cases of hand involvement alone, 149 cases of foot involvement alone, and 93 cases of combined hand and foot involvement. Polydactyly was commonly preaxial in the hand and postaxial in the foot, in contrast to the well-known postaxial dominance in the hand among whites. Hand anomalies were likely to show the same Swanson type of anomaly as the foot, with the affected digital ray likely to be identical in both hand and foot.