Sorting out the truth

Don't believe everything you read about Dupuytren's - even in respectable journals. I was aware that reflex sympathetic dystrophy (complex regional pain syndrome) was more common after fasciectomy for Dupuytren's than for other hand operations, but there is little published on this. Then, this report came out documenting surprisingly high incidence of this complication, higher than I would have guessed: http://www.dupuytrenfoundation.org/DupPDFs/2006_Reuben_499.pdf. Sadly, the lead author on this and several other academic papers was found to have falsified data, and the accuracy of this particular report will never be known. Too bad - I'd still like to know what the actual numbers were.