Male With Pain in Left Hand

Abstract

A 59-year-old right-handed professional painter presented to the emergency department with complaint of pain in the left hand. Approximately 2 hours before arrival, he was cleaning his high-pressure paint gun when it accidentally fired into his left palm. Physical examination revealed a small puncture wound at the distal palmar crease on the ulnar aspect of the left palm, with mild erythema and tenderness around the wound (Figure 1). Scar and skin retraction at the base of the small and ring fingers was also observed, which the patient said was longstanding and unrelated to the acute injury. Radiograph of the left hand revealed no fracture or radiopaque foreign body. The left hand was splinted and elevated. Intravenous antibiotics, analgesics, and tetanus prophylaxis were given. Hand surgeon consultation was obtained and the patient underwent urgent exploration of the hand in the operating room. High-pressure paint injection injury and unrelated Dupuytren's disease. Despite the innocuous early appearance of many high-pressure injection injuries, they are associated with a high rate of significant functional impairment and amputation.1Neal N.C. Burke F.D. High-pressure injection injuries.Injury. 1991; 22: 467-470Abstract Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (58) Google Scholar The key to treatment is recognition of the severe nature of this injury and urgent surgical decompression and debridement to avoid extensive tissue destruction. The likelihood of amputation increases if debridement is delayed more than 6 hours.2Vasilevski D. Noorbergen M. Depierreux M. et al.High pressure injection injuries to the hand.Am J Emerg Med. 2000; 18: 820-824Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (30) Google Scholar Our patient was taken urgently to the operating room for surgical decompression, debridement, and irrigation. A significant amount of latex paint was debrided from the soft tissues of the palm (Figure 2). The patient's Dupuytren's disease was excised incidentally to facilitate the debridement. The patient did well postoperatively and was discharged home, with arrangements for outpatient hand therapy.