Surgical treatment of ingrown toenail and paronychia with lateral toe incision

Objective: To investigate and compare the advantages of surgical treatment of ingrown toenail with the traditional Winograd method. Methods: From Aug.2013 to Jun.2015,77 cases (89 toes) with 15-58 years were involved in the study.37 cases (42 toes) were treated with Winograd method and other 40 cases (47 toes) were treated with a method using lateral incision without cutting the nail fold. The time of returning to normal activities, infection rate, recurrence rate, pain VAS score and shape satisfaction VAS score were evaluated to display the aesthetic and functional result of the both methods. Results: All patients were followed up with an average of 8.6 months. The patients treated with the novel method returned to normal activities after (5.3 ± 0.5) d post-surgery, which was much shorter than that (7.3 ± 0.6) d in patients with the Winograd method (P ＜ 0.05).And the infection rate in the lateral incision group was also lower than that in the Winograd method group (P ＜ 0.05).At 3 days post-surgery, the pain VAS score in Winograd method group was higher (P ＜ 0.05),but the difference of pain VAS score disappeared after 1 and 6 months post-surgery (P ＞ 0.05).The shape satisfaction VAS score were 9.2 ± 0.6 in the lateral incision group and 7.1 ± 0.7 in the Winograd group, showing significant difference (P ＜ 0.05). Conclusions: The lateral incision method without incising the nail fold reserves the nail groove and brings faster recovery to normal activities with less pain, lower infection rate and more satisfactory toenail shape.