title: Treatment of de Quervain tenosynovitis. A prospective study of the results of injection of steroids and immobilization in a splint.
abstract: In a prospective study of non-operative treatment of de Quervain tenosynovitis, ninety-nine wrists of ninety-five consecutively seen patients who had this diagnosis had an injection of one milliliter of a 1 per cent lidocaine solution and one milliliter of a suspension containing forty milligrams of methylprednisolone acetate. Twelve patients (twelve wrists) were lost to follow-up. Of the remaining eighty-seven wrists, fifty-four (62 per cent) had a satisfactory outcome at a mean of eighteen months (minimum follow-up, twelve months). The duration of symptoms before treatment did not affect the outcome. The result in thirty-three wrists (38 per cent) was considered unsatisfactory. Thirty of these wrists were subsequently treated with operative release of the first dorsal compartment, and twenty-two (73 per cent) of the thirty were found to have a separate compartment for the extensor pollicis brevis. The prevalence of a separate compartment is significantly higher than that in the general population, as shown in anatomical studies of cadavera.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, 02114.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Witt
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pess
authors.forename: R H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Gelberman
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007267:Injections; D008297:Male; D008775:Methylprednisolone / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012008:Recurrence; D013165:Splints; D013717:Tenosynovitis / Q000628:therapy*; D014955:Wrist Joint
chemical_list: D008775:Methylprednisolone