Factors effecting the success of conservative management in de Quervain cases

Aim: De Quervain’s disease, which is known as tenosynovitis of the first radial dorsal compartment, usually is a self-limiting condition and it could be managed conservatively. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the factors affecting the success of the conservative treatment.Methods: Patients who admitted to outpatient service with radial styloid pain and diagnosed as de Quervain’s disease between March 2014 and December 2016 were enrolled to our study. A total number of 84 patients evaluated retrospectively, and 12 of them excluded due to inadequate patient information, previous interventions in other clinics, and lost to follow up. Patients’ files with regard to the patients’ data on age, sex, duration of symptomatic period, history of previous trauma, season of admission and need of surgery were evaluated.Results: Mean age of the patients was 42.24 (range 16-66) years. Of the cohort, 58 patients (80.6%) were female and the remaining patients (19.4%) were male. Mean length of pre-admission symptomatic period was 2.2 (range 1-12) months. There was no significant correlation between the resistance to treatment and the duration of the symptoms (r=0.4597). Sixty-one of 72 patients (84.7%) received one month of orthosis and oral/local medication and they were all healed. The remaining 11 patients with persistent pain received additional steroid injections. The mean age was 46.72 years at the injection group, and 10 of these 11 were female. Two female patients from these 11 resistant cases underwent surgical decompression. Conclusion: In conclusion, our study also supported the self-limiting clinical feature of de Quervain’s disease. Most of the patients have satisfactory results with conservative treatment or corticosteroid injections if needed. Most of the patients who needed corticosteroid injections in addition to splint use were female; therefore, the female patients should be informed in this aspect