Hand Tumor Removal Gets Woman Back to Work

Learn how a hand tumor removal gets woman back to work. Donna, a recent tumor removal patient of Craig P. Jones, M.D., a board-certified orthopaedic surgeon specializing in orthopaedic oncology at the Orlando Orthopaedic Center, shares her story.

“Six months ago, I had surgery on my thumb, and Dr. Jones and Dr. Christensen performed it,” says Donna. “Since then, it’s been amazing. My ability to work on my keyboard has improved, my ability to write and hold a pen. I’m extremely pleased with everything that came out of the surgery.”

“For about a year prior to that, I was having mobility problems working at my desk on the keyboard, and picking up a pencil. (The tumor) became quite big, it was growing and causing more problems.”

“Donna told me that over the past two years she had an enlarging mass around the base of her right thumb, along the proximal phalanx,” says Dr. Jones. “In the clinical exam, it looked like it was a large mass 270 degrees around the bone. The MRI showed a mass ¾ of the way around the bone with elevation of the blood vessels and nerves. Dr. Christensen and I took her to the operating room about a month after I first saw her, and did a biopsy. The biopsy during surgery revealed it to be a giant cell tumor of the tendon sheath which is a benign but locally aggressive tumor. In this case, it actually invaded the bone. We took out the soft-tissue component and then with a tiny curette reached in and took out the residual tumor inside the bone. We sewed her up and then had her go to occupational therapy.”

“My physical therapy lasted about a month,” says Donna. “I did everything they told me to do; I did the exercises, and today I’m perfectly fine and back to normal. I don’t have any problems typing or writing, nobody sees a tumor anymore, and I’m very, very pleased.”

“Thankfully, at the last visit about a month after surgery, Donna had normal motion and full sensation and vascular supply to the thumb,” says Dr. Jones. “So she’s back to doing all the things she was able to do prior.”

“If I would have been a little more proactive, it probably wouldn’t have been such an intense and long surgery. I would say to anyone (needing help) to seek help from your physician to give you a referral for Dr. Jones and his team.”

To learn more about Orlando Orthopaedic Center visit https://www.orlandoortho.com/
To learn more about Dr. Jones visit https://www.orlandoortho.com/physicia...
To learn more about Orlando Orthopaedic Center’s Oncology Center visit https://www.orlandoortho.com/subspeci...