Fingertip Injuries Conservative Management with Dressing: A Systematic Review

Introduction: Fingertip traumatic injuries are known as the most common injuries to the hand. Conservative management is one of the treatment approaches that is purposed to promote secondary healing in fingertip injuries. This article reviews the current best evidences and concepts about recent developments in conservative management using dressing in fingertip injuries. Methods: A literature search was carried out to determine potential studies for this review up to November 20th 2020. The search was performed using the PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar databases including keywords that matched the MeSH rule and the term used for fingertip injuries and conservative management. Results: The search strategy generated several diverse literatures presenting a variety of conservative management in fingertip injuries. A total of 6 studies were included in the review. Satisfactory healing outcomes were found in most of the studies. Tissue healing as assessed by pulp regeneration was found in 4 of the 6 studies studied. Improvement of normal functions from the aspect of fingertip sensibility is also no different compared to non-conservative management. Satisfaction of aesthetic aspects were also found in the studies, although some complications can still be observed. Conclusion: Conservative management with dressings allows patients to avoid long immobilization with satisfactory results in clinical healing outcomes, complication, and aesthetic measures. However, comparative studies are still limited; thus, further studies are needed to provide more advanced statistical result as to whether type of conservative management is superior to each other in fingertip injuries. Keywords: fingertip injury, digital injury, conservative, dressing