Hand Problems Related to Chemotherapeutic Agents

With the increasing use of powerful chemotherapeutic agents, the impact of their associated toxicity has also increased. It is important for hand surgeons to recognize and manage complications in the hand caused by chemotherapy. The most commonly used therapies that may be associated with these complications are bleomycin, platinum, taxol, and vinca agents that are used to treat lymphoma, testicular, breast, and prostate cancers. These therapies may extravasate and cause local soft tissue damage in the hand (incidence varies from 0.01% to 7%) but other more systemic adverse hand reactions such as chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), hand–foot syndrome, and Raynaud phenomenon must also be recognized and addressed (incidence varies in the acute setting from 68% to 9.9% and 37%, respectively).
Source: The Journal of Hand Surgery - Category: Surgery Authors: Tags: In brief Source Type: research