Papers of the Week

In areas that are not commonly affected by compartment syndrome because they have a good content/container ratio, diagnosis of the condition can be a challenge, since surgeons will find it difficult to make a diagnosis on the basis of an isolated sign or symptom. As a result, the correct treatment can very often be delayed, causing harm to the patient. In this case, the patient was a 29-year-old woman who was seen for a painful left hand secondary to a large burn injury to the area anterior of the anatomical snuffbox. She had already undergone surgery in her home town 30 days previously, with debridement of skin and subcutaneous tissue, but the pain had not improved. She was on antibiotic therapy (ceftriaxone, 1g every 12 hours) and analgesia, with therapeutic morphine doses every 8 hours.