Abstract:

Objective: Benign soft tissue masses of the hand are more common than malignant and bone derived masses. Most of these can be treated with outpatient surgery. In the present study, we aimed to assess the diagnosis, recurrence rate and the effect of local anesthesia method on the recurrence rate of benign soft tissue masses treated with outpatient surgery. Method: 179 patients with histopathologically confirmed diagnosis of benign soft tissue mass who were treated with outpatient surgery between 2015 and 2020 were retrospectively reviewed. In addition to the demographic characteristics of the patients, the results were analyzed according to the exact diagnosis of the masses, anatomical locations and the local anesthesia method. Results: 96 (53%) patients were female and 83 (47%) were male. The mean age was 41.6 (10-75; SD: 15.1) years and the mean follow-up time was 47.4 (24-82; SD: 11.1) months. The anatomical localization of the mass was most common in the second and third finger rows (21% and 21%, respectively) and at the level of the proximal phalanx (22%). The most common diagnoses were tendon sheath giant cell tumor (27%) and ganglion cyst (16%). The recurrence rate was 6% among all patients. It was observed that 89 (49%) patients were operated under regional intravenous anesthesia (RIVA), and 90 (51%) patients were operated with infiltrative local anesthesia (LA). There was no significant difference in terms of recurrence between these two methods (p=0.546). Conclusion: Benign soft tissue masses of the hand can be successfully treated with outpatient surgery. Recurrence rates were low in our patient series and it was concluded that different local anesthesia methods did not affect the recurrence rate.

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