Overview

What is a mallet finger?

Mallet finger is also known as drop finger or baseball finger. It is a tendon injury that bends the tip of your finger or thumb. Tendons connect your bones to your muscles, making them stable yet mobile. When that tendon gets injured, it can tear or separate from the bone that holds it at the fingertip. You may also injure your finger bone along with your tendon in some cases. If you have a mallet finger, you can't straighten your finger. It droops at the tip hurts and looks bruised and/or swollen.

Mallet finger is a very common injury to athletes in baseball, basketball, or football. It occurs when an athlete tries to catch a hard ball with an outstretched fingertip. The injury often occurs to a finger on the dominant hand.

Who is at risk of a mallet finger?

This generally occurs to baseball players, but anyone playing any ball game, which means using hard balls (basketball, volleyball, football, etc.), can acquire this injury. In fact, anyone can suffer a mallet finger injury with the simplest thing such as making his bed.

What are the symptoms of a mallet finger?

Following the throbbing of an initial injury, you would likely have:

• Swelling.
• Bruising.
• Redness.
• An inability to extend your fingertip.
• Tenderness.
• A fingernail that is torn away from the nail bed.
• Redness under the fingernail bed.

What causes a mallet finger?

Mallet finger injury occurs when something sharp strikes your outstretched finger or when there has been some blow to your fingertip, such as getting your finger caught in the door.

How do doctors diagnose mallet fingers?

If your healthcare professional finds that you can't straighten your finger, they will order an X-ray. Sometimes, ultrasounds and MRIs are required for additional diagnosis.

Can mallet finger be treated?

Both acute and chronic treatment is needed to heal.

Immediately you are injured, you should right away:

• Apply ice on your finger by wrapping an ice pack in a towel.
• Elevate your finger to the level of your heart. This can reduce swelling and ease the pain.
• To relieve the pain, take over-the-counter pain medicines whenever necessary.

Long-term management consists of advancing the fingertip into a splint and maintaining it for at least six weeks to allow your tendon to heal. If the bone is avulsed, your healthcare provider might want to repeat the X-ray after one to two weeks of splinting to check on the appropriate alignment of the fragment and healing status. You will wear your splint day and night for at least six weeks. Often, the splint may be removed in a controlled manner to permit cleaning of the splint and finger, but you should avoid strenuous activities and sports so as not to risk recurrent injury.

There are many types of splints. Your physician will want to determine which is best for you. Be sure to clean and dry your splint daily (remember to straighten out your finger as you do so). Use ice on your splinted finger for 10-20 minutes three or four times daily.

More severe mallet finger injuries may necessitate the placement of a small pin under surgery that is inserted into the finger to keep the joint straight as healing occurs.

Do I need surgery?

Mallet finger surgery is done very rarely. However, if the joint of your finger is dislocated, your finger is fractured, or there are pieces of bone that have led to instability in your joint. Your injury is termed "complex," and surgery may be necessary. For such surgery, the surgeon might make an incision in your skin or insert a pin or wire to keep your fingertip straight.

Is the surgery for a mallet finger done inpatient or outpatient?

Surgery to correct a mallet finger is an outpatient procedure, which is usually performed under local or regional anesthesia, possibly with sedation. Once you're stable, you can go home and won't have to spend the night in the hospital.

What are the complications of the treatment of a mallet finger?

Most complications arise from poor treatment that does not adequately immobilize your finger. In rare cases, even with proper care, the tendon simply won't heal. Under these circumstances, solid destabilization surgery (fusion) of the end of two bones can heal and stabilize them with virtually normal function.

Can mallet finger be prevented?

You may prevent some injuries from mallet fingers, for example, when using the ball in sporting activities. However, mallet finger injuries happen due to everyday life accidents that individuals can never prevent against.

What are the prospects of a patient who has a mallet finger?

Most patients with mallet finger injuries heal and can carry out their usual functions without surgical intervention.

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