Dough sheeter injuries to the upper limb: severity grading and patterns of injury

Hand injuries by roller machines are not uncommon. Short mentions in textbooks describe them as severe. Injuries by dough sheeter machines, an example of roller trauma, are treated frequently in the authors' practice. No reports on lesions specifically caused by sheeters were found.

This study retrospectively analyzed 28 consecutive cases. Causes of accidents and injury patterns were described, and severity was graded by the Hand Injury Severity Score.

Injury patterns were referenced to anatomic components. Integument (24 cases) and skeleton (14 cases) were the most frequently injured, whereas tendons and nerves were the least frequently injured. Hand Injury Severity Score values ranged from 4 to 182 (mean, 75.36). Only two cases qualified as mild. The remaining cases fell into the moderate, major, or severe categories. In three cases, the Hand Injury Severity Score was not applicable.

As a rule, sheeter accidents cause serious injuries. Integument and bone traumas are predominant. Simple safety practices could prevent most of these injuries.