Treatment of Distal Biceps Tendon Injuries with Particular Emphasis on Postoperative Physiotherapy.

Distal biceps tendon injuries are relatively rare. Standard treatment of complete tears and significant partial tears involves surgical anatomical reinsertion of the tendon at the radial tuberosity. Chronic injuries are usually managed with surgical tendon reconstruction using autografts or allografts. Conservative treatment is mostly limited to the elderly, individuals with a very low level of physical activity, patients with evident contraindications to surgical treat-ment, and cases of mild partial tendon tears. The selection of an optimum surgical technique and method of fixation remains controversial. The aim of this paper is to characterize distal biceps tendon injuries, discuss methods of their surgical treatment, and analyze postoperative physiotherapy regimens described in the literature. A literature review did not reveal any relationship between the surgical method and type of fixation used on the one hand and the period of immobilization, type of immobilization, or the postoperative physiotherapy regimen on the other.