Version of recordOriginal research
New Insights into Boxer’s Knuckle Injury of the Little Finger
Sébastien Durand, Thierry Christen, Jean-Baptiste Ledoux, Romain Baillot. 2023. Journal of Clinical Medicine.
Published in Journal of Clinical Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13010046
Read the full text at PubMed CentralPDF filesPubMed 38202053
The medical question
What exactly is torn in a boxer’s knuckle injury of the little finger?
The Fight Medicine Research Institute uses this evidence to frame questions about how knuckle injuries from punching are diagnosed and described. The study is a series of five surgical patients, none of them described as a fighter, which determines which questions it can inform.
Summary
In five patients operated on for boxer’s knuckle of the little finger, imaging and surgery showed a lengthwise tear between the two slips of one extensor tendon, not a separation of two different tendons as earlier descriptions state.
What the work reports
- Five patients with a painful lump over the knuckle of the little finger were examined before surgery with high-resolution ultrasound and three-dimensional reconstructions based on MR arthrography, and the images were compared with what was found at operation.
- In all five, the extensor digiti minimi, a tendon that straightens the little finger, had two slips and the injury was a lengthwise tear between them; none had a common extensor tendon to the little finger. The mean gap between the two slips was 7.8 mm (range 4.5 to 10 mm) on the injured side and 1.3 mm (range 1 to 2 mm) on the other hand.
- After surgical repair all five patients were free of pain at rest and no complications were seen. The authors conclude that earlier descriptions of boxer’s knuckle of the little finger, as an injury between two different tendons, are inaccurate, and that ultrasound and three-dimensional MR reconstruction can locate the tear.
Limits to keep in mind
- This is a series of five patients with no comparison group, so it cannot show how often this pattern of injury occurs.
- The article does not describe any patient as a boxer or other fighter; two of the five injuries came from a punch.
- Follow-up was 6 months for four of the five patients, and the authors note that treatment options for boxer’s knuckle are not well established.
Source issues recorded
- Crossref and Europe PMC date this article 21 December 2023, and the article’s copyright line is dated 2023. The issue it belongs to (volume 13, issue 1) is dated January 2024 in the Crossref record and in the PubMed Central file, so the article may also be found cited with the year 2024.
- The text gives a median follow-up of 16.8 months (range 6 to 60 months). The follow-up times in Table 1 of the article are 5 years for one patient and 6 months for the other four, which gives a mean of 16.8 months and a median of 6 months. This record gives the times from the table.
Publication status and notices
Published in Journal of Clinical Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal. Original research article in Journal of Clinical Medicine.
Form of this work: Version of record. The version of record is the final article as issued by its publisher.
No correction or retraction notice was found in Crossref or Europe PMC when this record was checked.
Fight Medicine Research Institute contribution
Fight Medicine Research Institute selected and catalogued this study, prepared an original research summary, verified its bibliographic details, and maintains the associated citation record.
PDF files
- Open the record sheet (PDF): New insights into boxer’s knuckle injury of the little finger
- Full text at PubMed Central: New insights into boxer’s knuckle injury of the little finger
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Article details
- Relationship
- External research catalogued by the Fight Medicine Research Institute. The original authors, journal and DOI are unchanged.
- Published online
- 21 December 2023
- Repository date
- 21 December 2023 (Europe PMC first-publication date)
- Date used here
- 21 December 2023 (Crossref publisher deposit, online publication date)
- Rights
- CC BY 4.0. Open access under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY 4.0), as recorded by Europe PMC and the licence link in the source record. The summary on this page is Fight Medicine Research Institute’s own wording. No text or figure from the article is reproduced here. Licence terms.
- Source check
- , against PubMed Central full text, Crossref and Europe PMC. Checked under the direction of Casey C. Sears, Founder. An LLM was utilized as a research tool with direct human oversight.
- Appraisal
- The check covered bibliographic details, links, licence and notices. It is not a formal critical appraisal of the full paper.
- Clinical review
- None. This record is a research summary, not clinical education.
- Funding and conflicts
- The article states that the research received no external funding and that the authors declare no conflicts of interest.
- Catalog
- FH-062, added
Cite the original work
These files cite the work by its own authors, journal and DOI. Fight Medicine Research Institute appears only in a note, as curator of this catalog page.
Sébastien Durand, Thierry Christen, Jean-Baptiste Ledoux, Romain Baillot. New Insights into Boxer’s Knuckle Injury of the Little Finger. Journal of Clinical Medicine. 2023;13(1):46. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13010046
Related on this website
- Fighter Health: Hand and wrist injuries