[An angiographic study of congenital hand anomalies (author's transl)]

Accurate knowledge of the arterial variations of the anomalous hand is of considerable practical importance not only in the process of reconstructive surgery in hand anomalies but also in the consideration of the classification and the developmental stage of these defects. Between 1970 and 1980, we have performed an angiography on 102 anomalous hands of 97 patients at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Nagoya University Branch Hospital. They consist of 28 cases of polydactyly, 25 of syndactyly, 14 of cleft hand, 13 of radial ray deficiency, 6 of ulnar ray deficiency, 6 of congenital constriction band syndrome, 5 of brachysyndactyly, 3 of macrodactyly and 1 each of monodactyly and aberrant muscle of the forearm. High origin of the radial artery was encountered in 11 out of 95 hands (11.6 per cent). In 5 out of 11 hands, an incomplete volar arch was found. The median artery entered into the formation of the superficial volar arch in about 20 per cent of cases. It occurred most frequently in radial ray deficiency (Table 1). An unusual division and course of the artery in the forearm occurred in 5 hands. The developmental disorders of the radial artery were encountered in 19 of the 102 hands (18.6 per cent). Especially, they were observed frequently in radial ray deficiency, and represented an occurrence in 84.6 per cent of these deficits (Table 2). The superficial volar arch was absent in about 25 per cent of cases. This arterial pattern was seen frequently in cleft hand and syndactyly (Table 3). In 30 of the 39 cases of syndactylism, the common digital artery bifurcated into the proper digital artery much further distally than normal. The digital arterial patterns of the duplicated thumb could be divided into 4 types (Fig. 3). The arterial patterns of cleft hand were quite different from those with radial ray deficiency, but were rather similar to those of syndactyly. The arterial patterns of ulnar ray deficiency tended to fall into two groups: those with the developmental disorders of the radial artery and those without them.