Treatment of Paint: Gun Injury

Shin, Dong Bae; Cho, Sung Do; Kim, Bum Soo; Jin, Kyung Ho; Cheong, Hwa Chul

Abstract

The paint gun is an industrial instrument which ejects paint through a small opening with pressure of l,500 to 3,000 Ib/inch. In case of the paint-gun injury, the paint penetrates through a tiny wound of skin and spreads widely along the fascial plane or tendon sheath. It destroys the tissues rapidly. Moreover, the toxicity of the paint material evokes acute inflammatory reaction which is accompanied by localized swelling, erythema, heat and sometimes generalized symptoms (i.e fever). Local toxic reaction leads to swelling, circulatory disturhance and foIlowed hy gangrene of the tissue. Sometimes tissue condition is too desperate to survive and bring about amputation unfortunately. Authors treated eleven patients of the paint gun injury f'rom March 1988 to April 1995. The paint materials were removed thoroughly via large skin incision as immediately as possible after the injury. Usually the wound is left to be open for seven to ten days and is followed by delayed primary wound closure. In our experience of three cases of delayed removal( two, five and seven days after injury), the outcomes were poor with problems of pain, sensory disturhance, limitation of finger motio, and two cases of digit amputation. On doing paint gun injection, right hand was used to hold the paint-gun and left hand was used to hold the cable. Our study showed right hands were injured mainly(nine cases). It means the paint gun injury is caused by inattention of work partner.