Quality of life improvement in aged patients after toenail surgery

Patients of all ages can develop nail disorders, such as onychocryptosis, which are recurrent and painful conditions.

The aim of the study was to compare the quality of life in a group of aged patients with recurrent and painful ingrown toenails before and after chemical nail surgery to treat onychocryptosis.

The study design utilized a presurgery and a postsurgery questionnaire and examined prospective serial cases. The participants were drawn from an outpatient podiatric clinic from 1 January 2015 to 29 August 2016. The final sample of patients (>65 years old) underwent nail surgery with chemical matricectomy using phenol. In addition to the chemical nail surgical procedure, the patients completed the Manchester-Oxford Foot Questionnaire (MOXFQ) and the Borg CR-10 scale category ratio (CR) within 4 weeks prior to surgery. The patients completed both questionnaires again through mailing 3 months postsurgery.

Lower MOXFQ scores were noted after surgery, demonstrating an improvement in quality of life after chemical nail surgery. Men and women exhibited similar results (p > 0.05), with the exception of the Borg CR-10 scale where women reported more residual pain compared with men, with scores of 1.26 ± 1.65 and 0.09 ± 0.20, respectively (p = 0.011).

After a chemical nail surgery procedure, the quality of life improved in aged patients with recurrent and painful ingrown toenails.