Diagnosis and treatment of distal limb microcirculatory disturbance caused by steroid injection

Corticosteroid is commonly used for the clinical treatment of pain. It is safe, reliable and a simple procedure with other advantages. However, a possible potential catastrophic complication of corticosteroid injections in distal limbs (e.g., the wrist) is acute radial artery ischemia due to the injection into the radial artery. This may result from spasm attributed to the steroids. While the complication of corticosteroids in the wrist is rare, ischemia of the hand caused by corticosteroid injections in radial artery has been reported in several articles. We treated five patients with microcirculation disturbance of distal limb caused by corticosteroid treatment. Here, we report the two different treatment strategies adopted according to the severity of the disease which achieved good therapeutic effects.