Journal article ·
Free functional muscle transfer for post-burn elbow contracture: a five-year single-centre series
Khan Papon MRK, Hasan MT, Sultana R. Free functional muscle transfer for post-burn elbow contracture: a five-year single-centre series. Bangladesh Journal of Plastic Surgery. 2026;12(2):88–97.
Draft — not yet reviewed
This summary is a working draft and is not the abstract of the published paper. Refer to the journal for the published text.
Abstract
Post-burn contracture at the elbow is common where burn care is delivered late and rehabilitation is scarce, and severe cases lose not only movement but the muscle that would provide it. This series reviews five years of free functional muscle transfer performed at a single centre for elbow contracture following burn injury, and reports range of movement, donor-site morbidity and return to work.
The series is presented as a record of what is achievable without a dedicated rehabilitation service, rather than as a comparison against units that have one.
Why this operation, in this setting
Free functional muscle transfer is a long operation requiring microsurgical support, and it is not the first answer to a stiff elbow. Release and grafting is quicker and carries less risk. Where the flexors themselves have been lost, however, release alone restores a joint that nothing can bend, and the transfer is what makes the movement possible rather than merely permitted.
The decision therefore turns on whether functioning muscle remains, which is a clinical judgement made before the patient reaches theatre.
What the series suggests
The consistent finding across the period is that outcome depends less on the transfer than on what follows it. Patients who completed supervised physiotherapy regained useful flexion; those who did not, largely did not — regardless of how well the transfer took.
That is an uncomfortable conclusion for a surgical paper, because it locates the result outside the operation. It also argues for building the rehabilitation pathway before expanding the surgical one.