Looped Penrose Drainages of Acute Hand Infections in Vulnerable Populations

Purpose: Acute hand infections (AHIs) remain a challenge for hand surgeons and represent a condition for which clinical outcomes are considerably affected by social barriers. We previously described the looped Penrose drainage technique, where a drain is sutured to itself in a loop and the outflow tract of egress is maintained, thus obviating the need for large incisions, wound closure, or repeat packing, thereby reducing the follow-up burden. In the face of escalating numbers of socioeconomically vulnerable patients, especially in urban settings, we aimed to characterize the clinical features and outcomes of this technique in an urban population of patients with AHI.

Methods: A review of all surgical irrigations of AHI by a single, fellowship-trained hand surgeon at an urban hospital from 2013 through 2021 was performed. Patient demographics, procedure details, and postprocedure outcomes were analyzed.

Results: Fifty-three patients (average age, 48.6 years) with AHI underwent surgical irrigations with the looped Penrose drainage technique. The majority of patients were Black (50.9%). Approximately 81.1% of the patients received public insurance, 22.6% were unemployed, 35.9% had annual incomes <$40,000, and 17% experienced homelessness. Overall, 34% were lost to follow-up with the Penrose still intact, including 78% of those who were homeless. Most of the cases occurred on the hand, with involvement of the deep spaces (24.5%), tenosynovitis (39.3%), and bone (1.9%). Recurrent infection (1.9%) and abscess formation (5.7%) led to one reoperation (1.9%). There were no amputations or readmissions, and all postoperative emergency department visits (7.1%) were discharged.

Conclusions: The looped Penrose technique is a simple and less invasive alternative to traditional incision and drainage with packing and serves as an effective single-episode intervention strategy for AHIs, particularly in patients with complex social challenges because of the ease of wound management and low rates of readmission and reoperation.

Type of study/level of evidence: Therapeutic IV.