Treatment
Surgical treatments remain the primary option, other than doing nothing at all, for the treatment of ganglion cysts. Arthroscopic surgery of the wrist is becoming available as an alternative to open excision of ganglion cysts. Alternatively, a needle may be used to drain the fluid from the cyst (aspiration); however, if the fluid has become thick owing to the passage of time, this treatment is not always effective.
Ganglion cysts have been found to recur following surgery in 12% to 41% of patients.
A six-year outcome study of treatment of ganglia on the back (dorsum) of the wrist compared excision, aspiration and no treatment. Neither excision nor aspiration provided long-term benefit over no treatment. Of the untreated ganglia, 58% resolved spontaneously; the post-surgery recurrence rate in this study was 39%.
A similar study in 2003 of palmar wrist ganglion states: "At 2 and 5 year follow-up, regardless of treatment, no difference in symptoms was found, regardless of whether the palmar wrist ganglion was excised, aspirated or left alone."
An outdated method of treating a ganglion cyst was to strike the lump with a large heavy book, causing the cyst to rupture and drain into the surrounding tissues. Since almost every home owned a Bible and it was often the largest book in the home, this is what was commonly used, which led to the nickname of "Bible bumps" or "Gideon's disease."
Read more about this topic: Ganglion Cyst
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“I feel that any form of so called psychotherapy is strongly contraindicated for addicts.... The question “Why did you start using narcotics in the first place?” should never be asked. It is quite as irrelevant to treatment as it would be to ask a malarial patient why he went to a malarial area.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“Judge Ginsburg’s selection should be a model—chosen on merit and not ideology, despite some naysaying, with little advance publicity. Her treatment could begin to overturn a terrible precedent: that is, that the most terrifying sentence among the accomplished in America has become, “Honey—the White House is on the phone.””
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)