Threads are not always an asset. In the soft subchondral bone of an elderly humeral head or a small periarticular fragment, a thread cuts its own channel — and a channel is a loose connection waiting to happen. The smooth peg takes the opposite approach: nothing cuts, the peg displaces bone gently, and support comes from contact along the whole shaft.
Locked to the plate at a fixed angle, a row of pegs behaves like a set of small struts holding the articular surface to height. The same principle serves the small bone plates of the hand and foot at smaller diameters. Peg number, placement and diameter remain selections of the operating surgeon.
