Abstract
Objective The present paper aims to evaluate the therapeutic planning for trigger finger by
Brazilian orthopedists.
Methods This is a cross-sectional study with a population composed of participants from the
2018 Brazilian Congress on Orthopedics and Traumatology (CBOT-2018, in the Portuguese
acronym), who answered a questionnaire about the conduct adopted for trigger finger
diagnosis and treatment.
Results A total of 243 participants were analyzed, with an average age of 37.46 years old;
most participants were male (88%), with at least 1 year of experience (55.6%) and
from Southeast Brazil (68.3%). Questionnaire analysis revealed a consensus on the
following issues: diagnosis based on physical examination alone (73.3%), use of the
Quinnell classification modified by Green (58.4%), initial nonsurgical treatment (91.4%),
infiltration of steroids combined with an anesthetic agent (61.7%), nonsurgical treatment
time ranging from 1 to 3 months (52.3%), surgical treatment using the open approach
(84.4%), mainly the transverse open approach (51%), triggering recurrence as the main
nonsurgical complication (58%), and open surgery success in > 90% of the cases (63%),
with healing intercurrences (54%) as the main complication. There was no consensus
on the remaining variables. Orthopedists with different practicing times disagree
on treatment duration (p = 0.013) and on the complication rate of open surgery (p = 0.010).
Conclusions Brazilian orthopedists prefer to diagnose trigger finger with physical examination
alone, to classify it according to the Quinnell method modified by Green, to institute
an initial nonsurgical treatment, to perform infiltrations with steroids and local
anesthetic agents, to sustain the nonsurgical treatment for 1 to 3 months, and to
perform the surgical treatment using a transverse open approach; in addition, they
state that the main nonsurgical complication was triggering recurrence, and report
open surgery success in > 90% of the cases, with healing intercurrences as the main
complication.
Keywords
trigger finger - questionnaire - cross-sectional study - stenosing tenosynovitis
