Isolated hand injuries on operational deployment: an examination of epidemiology and treatment strategy

This study presents an analysis of 6 years of isolated hand injuries repatriated from Afghanistan or Iraq. Of a total of 6,337 medical cases evacuated back to the United Kingdom, 414 (6.5%) cases were identified as hand injuries; from these exclusions were: 207 who did not return to Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, 12 who were incorrectly coded, 1 was an old injury, and 41 whose notes were unavailable. The notes of the remaining 153 patients were reviewed: only 9% had battle injuries; nearly half involved fractures; overall, 73% required surgery, a total of 171 surgical episodes, a third of these operations occurred in deployed facilities. Patients with primary nerve or tendon repairs in deployed medical facilities had a trend toward significantly worse outcomes than those whose primary repair was delayed until repatriation. This study supports the current recommendation of delaying tendon and nerve repair until repatriation.