The treatment of trigger thumb in children: conservative or surgical?

The trigger thumb is an uncommon condition in infants and children which occurs due to pathology of flexor pollicis longus or A1 pulley. The objectives in our study were to determine the treatment outcome of trigger thumb. The study included total of 45 patients (24 males and 21 females) with trigger thumb. The mean age of onset was 28.5 months (3 months -7 years). There was overall success rate of 72.41% following conservative treatment and the success rate appears to be higher in the younger age group. The outcome of children who underwent surgery was 91.66% with recurrence rate of 8.33% and superficial wound infection rate of 4.16%. Our study suggests that surgery is not urgent, postponing surgery does not interfere with the result, trying conservative methods to get a higher chance of recovery is reasonable before the elective surgery. So conservative approach should be adopted in treating trigger thumb.