Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 2, 2026
Thoracoscopic Extended Right Middle Plus Lower Sleeve Lobectomy for Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer
Published on: February 27, 2026
[Reversal of digital clubbing in surgically treated lung cancer patients]
José da Silva Moreira1, Marlene Hass, Ana Luiza Schneider Moreira
1Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Pneumológicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil. moreirapneumo@bol.com.br
Objective:
To objectively evaluate the reversal of digital clubbing (DC) in a series of surgically treated lung cancer patients, and to review the literature on the subject.
Methods:
Sixty-one patients with non-small cell lung cancer--40 with and 21 without DC--were treated by pulmonary resection. Eleven (18%) received additional postoperative radiation therapy. Preoperatively, as well as on postoperative days 7, 18, and 90, the hyponychial angle (HA) and the distal phalangeal depth/interphalangeal depth (DPD/IPD) ratio were determined on profile shadow projections of the index fingers. A review of the literature on reversal of DC (1954-2007) was also performed.
Results:
From the preoperative period to postoperative day 90, HA decreased from 200.5 +/- 5.0 masculine to 193.3 +/- 6.8 masculine (p < 0.001), and the DPD/IPD ratio decreased from 1.014 +/- 0.051 mm to 0.956 +/- 0.045 mm (p < 0.001) in the group of 40 patients with DC. The HA and the DPD/IPD ratio decreased in 33 (82.5%) but remained the same in 7 (1.7%), 6 with unfavorable evolution. In the 21 patients without DC, HA (184.5 +/- 5.5 masculine) and the DPD/IPD ratio (0.937 +/- 0.046 mm) remained unchanged after surgery. In the literature (1954-2007), we found 52 cases, 5 of which were lung cancer cases, in which reversal of DC, observed in several clinical conditions, was explicitly reported.
Conclusion:
In most lung cancer patients, DC resolves after effective surgical treatment of the tumor, as can occur in patients with other conditions.
