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Paroxysmal Bruising in the Finger -Achenbach’s Syndrome-
Shin Watanabe1), Naoyuki Hashiguchi1), and Hiroyuki Kobayashi2)
Key Words:Achenbach’s syndrome, Bruising, Finger
A 70-year-old man, who was not on anticoagulants, presentedwith sudden onset of spontaneous painless bruising of his leftmiddle finger without prior trauma (Figure 1). After rulingout thrombocyte abnormalities, coagulopathy, and inflamma-tion, we diagnosed Achenbach’s syndrome (AS). In 1958,Achenbach first described “paroxysmal hand hematoma” or“finger apoplexia” (1).
The cause of this disease is not known till date; however,pain and numbness develop suddenly followed by a hemato-ma at the same site. AS is more common in middle-aged wom-en. The index and middle fingers are the most affected, andAS may be palmar (2). This disease does not spread to the fin-gertips, and AS is distinguishable from ischemic lesions. Spe-cific treatment is not required, and the patient may recoverspontaneously within 1 week with local rest. A general practi-tioner familiar with the disease can reassure the patient (3).
Informed written consent was obtained from the patient.
Article Information
Conflicts of InterestNone
IRB Approval CodeJHS 18-018 Juntendo University Hospital Independent Eth-ics Committee.
References1. Achenbach W. The paroxysmale hand-hematoma.
Medizinische. 1958;52(27):2138-40.2. Eikenboom JC, Cannegeiter SC, Breit E. Paroxysmal finger
haematoma: a neglected syndrome. Thromb Haemost.1991;66(2):266.
3. Yamamoto Y, Yamamoto S. Achenbach’s syndrome. N Engl JMed. 2017;376:e53.
JMA Journal is an Open Access journal distributed under the Crea-tive Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view the de-tails of this license, please visit (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
1) Department of Emergency and Disaster Medicine, Juntendo University, Tokyo, Japan.. 2) Department of General Medicine, Juntendo University, Tokyo,Japan.Corresponding author: Shin Watanabe, [email protected] J. 2019;2(1):89-90Received: September 13, 2018 / Accepted: September 28, 2018 / Advance Publication: November 12, 2018 / Published: March 4, 2019Copyright © Japan Medical Association
DOI: 10.31662/jmaj.2018-0033https://www.jmaj.jp/
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Figure 1. Bruising of the left middle finger.
DOI: 10.31662/jmaj.2018-0033JMA Journal: Volume 2, Issue 1 https://www.jmaj.jp/
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