[Comments on classification and terminology of congenital malformations in lower arm and hand (author's transl)]

It is the aim of this paper to draw attention to the problems facing the clinician when he tries to find a suitable nomenclature and classification of congenital malformations of the forearm and hand. The classification presented here takes into consideration the so-called Paris Nomenclature of 1969, as well as the systematisation of limb defects of the Working Group of the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthetics (commented upon by Henkel and al 1979), as well as the systematic organisation of malformations of the forearm and hand by Müller (1937), Werthemann (1952), Hopf (1959) and Witt, Cotta, Jäger (1966). On no account may this be regarded as a rigid and final setup. Efforts to achieve greater precision are still under way as before, with special emphasis on significant information supplied by teratology, embryology, genetics and biochemistry.