Fracture of the head of the radius with a tear or avulsion of the triceps tendon. A new syndrome?

In an earlier article (Levy, Fishel and Stern i978) we described six patients with avulsion of the triceps tendon, four of whom also had a fracture of the radial head. Since then we have treated 1 2 more patients with this combined injury. To the best of our knowledge this is the first and the largest series describing this combination. In our article we suggested that an awareness of the hazard of a fall on the outstretched arm with fracture of the radial head ought to increase the frequency of the diagnosis of avulsion or tear of the triceps which can result from such an accident.