As a professional cake decorator, Trisha Warren relies heavily on her hands. But over the last decade, she noticed worsening pain at the base of her left thumb while she was pinching and gripping.
“I’m doing what I love to do, but every day I thought to myself that I’m just going to have to live with this pain,” Warren said. “So I went on thinking I would never be able to do anything about it.”
But now, Warren has full use of her thumb without pain after having the first thumb joint replacement surgery in the United States.
"Like a tiny total hip replacement for the thumb, it will allow pain-free return to function in patients suffering from thumb arthritis pain,” said her surgeon Jonathan Tueting, MD, a shoulder, elbow and hand surgery specialist at Rush Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine in Aurora.
Warren had the surgery in September and plans to have it on her right hand next year.
“I had surgery on a Tuesday, and I already felt better within a couple of days,” Warren said. “I am already looking forward to the end result and to scheduling the surgery for my dominant hand.”
Each year, 1.5 million people in the U.S. and 20 million globally are diagnosed with arthritis of the thumb. It’s the most common form of hand arthritis among women in their 50s and 60s.
Joint replacement surgery often offers several advantages over other surgeries, such as faster recovery, less pain, and better restoration of grip and pinch strength.
Previously, another treatment option has been used to treat the arthritis in order to restore function of the basal joint. This included a trapeziectomy, where the trapezium bone is removed from the hand. The joint is then stabilized with a tendon graft or suture device to improve pain and function.
In the new joint replacement procedure, a modular three-part metal and plastic device is placed in the basal joint and includes a cup, a neck and stem. The trapezium is not removed but rather replaced with a steel trapezial cup or tiny socket. This allows a steel and plastic ball and socket neck component to attach to a small titanium stem in the thumb metacarpal. Since the joint is replaced with a stable ball and socket joint, the native anatomy is preserved, thumb pain is eliminated, and functional strength is restored.
“Previously only available in Europe, the thumb joint replacement provides an innovative and outstanding alternative for the treatment of thumb arthritis in the US,” Tueting said.
Tueting performed the very first carpometacarpal total joint arthroplasty in the country on Sept.16 using the TOUCH® CMC 1 prosthesis developed and manufactured by KeriMedical and distributed by Medartis Inc.
“We are proud to offer this option for individuals who experience this common condition of arthritis of the basal joint of the thumb,” Tueting said.
The opposable thumb is critical for hand function as it allows the thumb to be rotated and flexed to touch the tips of the other fingers during pinch and grip. The function of the basal joint enables complex grasping, manipulation of objects with precision and is crucial for tasks like using tools, technology, and even decorating cakes. This procedure allows pain-free restoration of all these activities.
“I cannot wait to have my right thumb joint replaced,” Warren said. “This has helped me to continue to do what I love to do — decorate beautiful cakes for special occasions.”
