Affiliation:
1. Trust Practitioner Orthopaedics Department Crawley Hospital Crawley West Sussex
2. Consultant Chemical Pathologist East Surrey Hospital Redhill Surrey and Crawley Hospital Crawley West Sussex
Abstract
A 29 year-old lady attended the Accident and Emergency Department of a District General Hospital complaining of increasing black discoloration of the tip of her left middle finger; the appearance resembled that of gangrene. However, it was established that she had been applying silver nitrate to her finger, as prescribed by her general practitioner for the treatment of a small granuloma. Hence, the true diagnosis was of localised tissue necrosis, secondary to application of the silver nitrate sticks. On early discontinuation of the therapy, there was complete recovery. In consequence, it is recommended that the practice of unsupervised local application of silver nitrate to the fingers should be discontinued. Opportunity is taken herein to review the uses of silver nitrate in clinical situations - and of silver in any of its many other forms - together with their respective adverse effects.
Subject
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Reference19 articles.
1. Treatment of allergic and vasomotor rhinitis by the local application of different concentrations of silver nitrate
2. Silver nitrate burns following treatment for umbilical granuloma
3. Dawber R P R and Walker N P J (1992). Physical and surgical therapy. In: Textbook of Dermatology, Chapter 77, 3108-3109 R H Champion, J L Burton and F J G Ebling, eds). Blackwell Scientific Publications
4. Dawber R P R, Ebling F J G and Wojnarowska F.T. (1992). Disorders of hair. In: Textbook of Dermatology, Chapter 63, 2629-2630 R H Champion, J L Burton and F J G Ebling, eds). Blackwell Scientific Publications
Cited by
9 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献，注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献，订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献