Management of hand injuries in a professional football team. Review of 15 years of experience with one team.

Thirty-eight players from one professional football team suffered 46 major hand and wrist injuries during a 15-year period. Twenty-one of the injuries occurred in offensive players and 25 occurred in defensive players. The injuries included fractures, dislocations, fracture dislocations, and soft tissue injuries of the phalanges, metacarpals, carpals (particularly the navicular), and distal radius/ulna, including intra-articular injuries. Twelve surgical procedures were performed. Open reduction, internal fixation, and Lightcast immobilization devices (3M Company, Atlanta, Georgia) allowed the players to return to active participation with a minimum loss of practice time and virtually no loss of Sunday game availability. Early aggressive surgery for intra-articular and certain metacarpal fractures is the correct course of treatment, according to our analysis, in order to achieve the best possible functional results.