Dactylolysis spontanea (ainhum). Report of a case treated by the surgical procedure known as Z-plasty.

Abstract

THAT PECULIAR CONDITION which consists of the development of a constricting band around a digit, usually of a toe and most usually of a small toe, and which leads eventual withering of the part, was first described more than 100 years ago as dry gangrene by Clarke.1In 1867, da Silva Lima2applied the phenomenon the word ainhum (meaning to saw) taken from the Yoruba language spoken by the people indigenous the west coast of Africa where, amongst other places, the condition is common. We do not know when the term dactylolysis spontanea was coined, but it too is apt in its literal statement of spontaneous separation of a digit. By now several hundred cases of what conforms the concept of an inherently painless withering and spontaneous amputation of a digit as described above have been reported. When pain is prominent in the process,