The Hand

The hand is a complex organ with a diverse range of pathology with conditions encompassing the domains of congenital disease, degenerative disease, trauma, infection, neoplastic disease, and vascular disease among others. Diagnosis in the hand is often reliant on physical examination and a myriad of diagnosis-specific physical examination maneuvers with basic radiography being a basic and important diagnostic step in many conditions. More-advanced diagnostics such as advanced imaging and arthroscopy are increasingly being employed particularly in the diagnosis of ligamentous and soft tissue injury. Treatment of hand pathology can be nonoperative and operative with a myriad of surgical techniques available for a single pathologic process at times. This chapter will cover the broad categories of pathology in the hand while delving into some of the most common and clinically relevant entities and their diagnosis and treatment.