Table 1.
Demographics of the patients and inclusion criteria
| Primary patients (n = 11) |
Referred patients (n = 34) |
p-value | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agea (year) | 48.5 (3.47) | 60.5 (4.02) | 0.001 | ||
| Sex (male/female) | 4/7 | 18/16 | 0.491 | ||
| Immunocompetent disease or immunosuppressive drug (yes/no) | 7/4 | 20/14 | 1.0 | ||
| DIP/PIP/Thumb | 8/3/0 | 19/12/3 | 0.120 | ||
| Penetration event (traumatic/iatrogenic/no) | 9/0/2 | 16/13/5 | 0.048 | ||
| Specific clinical history | 1 (animal bite) | 2 (animal bite) | 1.0 | ||
| Delay from symptom onset to treatment in the first visiting hospitalb (day) | 9 (7–14) [2–21] | 21 (7–28) [3–70] | 0.042 | ||
| Duration of empiric antibiotics in the previous hospitalc (day) | – | 7.5 (5–10.25) [3–28] | – | ||
| Delay from symptom onset to treatment in the present hospitalc (day) | – | 38 (21–91) [13–168] | – | ||
| Surgical drainage at the first visiting hospital (yes/no) | 11/0 | 8/26 | < 0.001 | ||
| Culture (+) | Pus (+) | Neutrophils ≥10/HPF | 2 | 17 | – |
| Neutrophils < 10/HPF | 5 | 7 | |||
| Pus (−) | Neutrophils ≥10/HPF | – | 2 | ||
| Neutrophils < 10/HPF | 3 | 1 | |||
| Culture (−) | Pus (+) | Neutrophils ≥10/HPF | – | 5 | |
| Neutrophils < 10/HPF | 1 | 2 | |||
| Pus (−) | Neutrophils ≥10/HPF | – | – | ||
Significant values shown in bold
DIP distal interphalangeal, PIP proximal interphalangeal, HPF high power field
aStudent’s t-test. Mean (standard deviation) presented
bMann-Whitney U-test. Median (25th–75th percentiles) [range] presented
cNon-parametric distribution. Median (25th–75th percentiles) [range] presented