Twenty-four cases of infections and sloughs in the hand in drug addicts have been treated surgically at The Roosevelt Hospital from 1968 to 1972. They were predominantly observed in those who used the veins in their hands and fingers for injections, and consisted of dorsal abscesses on the hand and tissue sloughs, tenosynovitis, and joint-space infections in the fingers. Boutonnière deformity was also frequently seen.
These lesions demanded early definitive and even radical treatment by the single most predictable means available, because generally the addict would not follow through with further treatment.