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Dr Piñal addresses Sudeck’s atrophy or reflex sympathetic dystrophy at the congress of the Asian Pacific Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand

19 March, 2020

Asian Pacific Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand_postevento_01_20200317

The twelfth edition of this meeting brought together several thousand physicians in the Australian city of Melbourne.

Dr Piñal during his keynote conference
Dr Piñal during his keynote conference at the 12th triennial congress of the APFSSH.

Melbourne hosted last week the 12th edition of the Asian Pacific Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand (APFSSH) triennial congress. The Spanish surgeon Francisco del Piñal was part of the international cast of guest speakers and addressed his latest research on reflex sympathetic dystrophy or Sudeck’s atrophy.

Sudeck’s atrophy, also known as complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS 1 and 2) causes acute pain in the patient with vasomotor alterations in the upper extremities such as swelling, color and temperature changes, burning or tingling, among others. These alterations cause serious functional limitations in the hand and arm, which are usually also accompanied by sleep disorders.

Based on his clinical work and surgical experience, Dr. Piñal does not consider Sudeck’s atrophy a pathology per se. Thus, from his medical point of view, we are dealing with a diagnostic profile that masks an unidentified origin of the patient’s real problems, which appear after an intervention, a fracture or an infectious process, among other precedent pictures.

The APFSSH meeting, one of the leading international conferences on upper limb surgery, brought together several thousand delegates from its associated medical societies at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Center.

The Spanish surgeon shared cast with the American doctors Chung, Colditz, Moran and Wolff, Canadians Ho and Lalonde, as well as with Swiss Daniel Herren and Hongkongese Cecilia Li Tsang.

In addition to his keynote speech, the Spanish surgeon participated with various interventions on radius fractures and microsurgical techniques in severe hand traumas.

Dr Piñal with Professor Ian Taylor
Professor Ian Taylor, a microsurgery legend with whom Dr Piñal trained at the Royal Melbourne Hospital early in his career in 1989.

Born in Santander, northern Spain, in 1960, Dr Francisco del Piñal is considered one of the world’s best hand surgeons. His contributions in the fields of microsurgical toe to hand transfer or arthroscopic surgery techniques on wrist fractures are endorsed and used internationally.

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