Background: Controversy surrounds the treatment of a mallet finger caused by an intra-articular fracture of the distal phalanx encompassing at least one-third of the articular surface. This study evaluated the efficacy of Delta wire pinning for mallet finger fractures.
Methods: 11patients (6 males &5 females) with a bony mallet finger treated by Delta wire pinning in the period between 2017 to 2019 years.
Results: The follow up had a mean value of 18.5 months, and the average time of union was 32 days. In all cases, the fracture healed by solid bony union without joint subluxation. VAS score has a mean value of 0.2 and the mean quick DASH score was11.7. Active flexion of the distal intrephalangeal joint had a mean value of 81.2̊ and the average extensor lag was 1.4̊There was one patient with superficial pin site infection with no pin migration, non-union, tender dorsal prominence, osteomyelitis nor skin sloughs. According to Crawford classification 72.5% of patients had excellent results, 18.5% had good results, 9% had fair results and 0% had poor results.
Conclusion: Early results of Delta wire pinning have shown to achieve early full active flexion of DIPJ with strong compression force on the fracture fragment continually with early return to occupation.