Fig. 1

Artificial metacarpal bones and five fixation types for metacarpal shaft fractures: (a) locking plate with four locking bicortical screws on the dorsal side; (b) locking plate with four locking bicortical screws on the lateral side; (c) regular plate with four regular bicortical screws on the dorsal side; (d) regular plate with four regular bicortical screws on the lateral side; and (e) two K-wires. Left column: anterior–posterior view; right column: lateral view. Note: For clarity, the right columns of (b) and (d) are the view from the lateral side, and the right columns of (a), (c), and (d) are the view from the medial side