| Abstract [eng] |
Tumors can occur in every tissue of the human body. Even though rare, tumors of the hand have a great impact on our daily lives. The lesions can be classified into soft tissue tumors, including fat tissue, vascular tissue, neural tissue and cartilage as examples, and bone tumors. Ganglion cysts are considered as the most frequent benign soft tissue lesions occurring on the hand, closely followed by giant cell tumor of the tendon sheath. In the bones of the hands, enchondromas are found most often. Commonly, tumors of the hand present as asymptomatic and solitary lesion which only cause symptoms when reaching a size large enough to compress adjacent nerves or vessels which in turn causes pain or restricted movement of the affected finger or the whole hand. They all can be detected by simple imaging methods like ultrasound, computed tomography or magnetic resonance which in majority of cases is sufficient for the clinical diagnosis. For the definite diagnosis, a biopsy of the affected tissue can be taken. For the treatment, surgical excision is curative in most of the cases. Other therapies such as laser ablation, cryotherapy or also topical pharmacotherapy can be used as alternatives in certain cases, but generally they demonstrate a higher recurrence rate in comparison to surgery. |
