I’m trying to figure out what to do. I have a trigger finger on my left hand. I am left-handed, and it’s becoming a real problem. I saw one doctor who said it was best to inject it with a steroid. When I went for a second opinion, I was told surgery to release the tissue around the tendon worked best. How do I decide?

Researchers at Vanderbilt School of Medicine may be able to help you. They spent considerable time going through all the medical literature published on the subject of treatment for trigger finger. In particular, they wanted to know how well steroid injections work.

They were able to find 56 studies on trigger finger. Four of those studies were acceptable for analysis. All the patients were adults with trigger finger caused by work trauma or diseases. For example occupational-based lifting or gripping, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes were most common.

Half to two-thirds of the patients got relief from their symptoms using splinting. Up to 87 per cent were helped by a single injection of corticosteroid. But a little more than one-quarter of those helped by the injection had a return of their trigger finger within a year. It appears that surgery had a much higher success rate (as high as 100 percent).

The authors of the Vanderbilt review suggest the following: