Thank you very much Mary.

To everyone interested, I am seeing my own GP on Wednesday this week. He is first class and I do have confidence in him.

Where I have a major concern, is the UK has been very slow to respond to new ideas in medicine and dentistry partly because the NHS is a nationalised industry and because of the history of the UK. A long time ago, Harley Street would have been regarded as the best in the world, so they are often unwilling to travel to another country and learn new ideas.

Reading websites here in the UK, it appears they still favour cutting the hand open and only recently has the British Medical establishment passed N/A, yet it has been used for decades in France and a very long time in the US.

Radiotherapy is most efficient on realitvely new, still growing nodules. It is much less efficient, but still has some effect, on cords. The simple rule is if you have no contrccature yet then radiotherapy is an option.

Wolfgang

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Can I ask another question? Mine actually started in October and I thought I had damaged my hand in some way so I left it for a while. Then I found it on the internet and started reading. Is it too late now for RT?

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Hi,

I too started to develop DC back last October. It started with what I thought was a painful callus and by January I had a hard knot in the palm of my hand below the middle finger. I saw the GP who did not know what it was, she referred me to a hand surgeon. By the time I got into see him I had a cord. He said there was no other treatments other than surgery and to come back and see him when my fingers had curled and he would do surgery.

I went on the internet found this site and found an oncologist who will do my radiation. I do not think it has grown since I had a steroid shot in April. The shot was great because it took away the pain and loosened up my hand, and I do not believe I have had any new growth. It calmed me down, because the cord and nodule were growing so rapidly I felt I was racing time and a decision.

I start my radiation treatment on July 6th for a week.

Hope this helps you,

Lori

Good points about recommendations to wait until the hand is deformed, then do surgery. I'm sure we can think of lots of analogies. To the extreme, an infection in a toe could be ignored until the whole leg needs to be amputated.

Greetings all,

I'm researching the small hard nodules I have in a couple fingers and wonder if I have DC. They are in the ring and middle fingers in the crease between the finger and palm. Definitely not in the palm (base of the finger really), and there is no contracture. I'm a 45 yr old male and of Scandanavian descent. So the symptoms appear to suggest DC. Does anyone else have a similar experience that would indicate this is DC?

Thanks Much!