Trapeziometacarpal joint denervation

Division of the small sensory nerve branches that supply the thumb-base joint, leaving the joint itself intact, to relieve the pain of osteoarthritis. Recovery is quick and later surgery is not excluded, but there is no randomised trial and series report reoperation, usually conversion to trapeziectomy, in up to about 30 per cent.

Related terms

• Condition

  Thumb-base arthritis

  Wear of the cartilage in the saddle-shaped joint between the trapezium and the base of the thumb metacarpal. The commonest site of hand arthritis after the fingertip joints, more frequent in women and with age; it causes pain at the base of the thumb on pinching and gripping, and in late stages a zigzag deformity. X-ray severity correlates poorly with symptoms.

• Treatment

  Trapeziectomy

  Removal of the trapezium so that the worn thumb-base joint no longer exists; the space fills with scar tissue and the thumb settles slightly. The standard operation for painful thumb-base arthritis, with good pain relief in about four in five people at five to eighteen years; pinch strength does not return to normal. Adding a tendon sling or spacer makes little or no difference.

Articles mentioning this term

1. FESSH preparation · 2 October 2026

   Thumb-base osteoarthritis: trapeziectomy versus arthroplasty

   Trapeziectomy versus joint replacement for thumb-base osteoarthritis: ligament anatomy, Eaton staging, the randomised trials, implant survival and salvage.

← Back to glossary