Clinical assessment of the relative lengths of the fingers of the human hand

Traumatic or congenital events can result in injury and functional deficiency in the hand and we need to reconstruct the fingers at times. Studies are available in the pediatric and adult age groups to assess the length of the thumb. But to the best our knowledge no measurement of the relative clinical length of all fingers has been reported in the literature. We performed this study to assess the clinical relative lengths of the fingers of the human hand by using surface landmarks. Fifty male and fifty female healthy participants were involved in the study. We assessed the distances between the tips of fingers from the distal wrist crease while the thumb and other fingers were held in adducted position. We also assessed the ratio of all fingers including the thumb to the middle finger. One hundred normal hands in 100 healthy volunteers were included in the study, 50 women and 50 men; the average age was 32(20- 50) years. The distance of tips of fingers from distal wrist crease were 93.6(86-120), 156.4 (142-185), 166.9 (150-200), 156.3(150-188), 132.4(114-168) millimeter in females respectively for the first to the fifths fingers and the same figures for male participants were 107.9(102-121),170.6(153-191),182.6(166-204),172.2(158-193),144.1(129-168) millimeter. The ratios of first, second, fourth and fifth fingers to the middle finger were 60 %, 94 %, 95 %, 79 % for males respectively and 59 %, 94 %, 94 %, 78 % for females. The authors believe that, the relative length of fingers can help the surgeon to decide confidently in the reconstruction of hand and fingers because this method is simple and easy use.