Twenty-six early operations in brachial birth palsy.

26 babies with brachial birth palsy were operated on at the age of 12-275 days (mean 75 days) in paediatric surgical departments of Helsinki (12 cases) and Turku (14 cases) University Central Hospitals during years 1970-1985 using microsurgical techniques. Epineuroraphy was used in 9, interfascicular nerve grafting in 7, neurolysis in 7, and intercostal neurotisation in 3 cases. The functional status of the upper extremity was recorded 1 to 14 years after the operation using a modified Mallet's classification: 6 were good, 17 fair and 3 poor. The outcome after epineuroraphy was similar to interfascicular grafting. One intercostal neurotisation resulted in fair function and 2 in poor, but the result in target function, i.g. in the peripheral neurotised nerve, was good.