Blistering Rash over Broken Ribs

Main Article Content

Kathleen R Graham
Summa Health System

Bethany R Rohr
University Hospitals

Victor J Marks
Geisinger Health System

Keywords

Fracture blisters, management of fracture blisters, blistering disorder, blisters, trauma

Abstract

Fracture blisters are painless fluid-filled bullae most commonly located over fractures of the distal tibia and humerus. They are diagnosed clinically. Invasive procedures and treatments increase the risk of wound infection and should be avoided. While there is no consensus on management, evidence supports leaving the blisters intact and treating erosions with topical barrier ointments or topical antibiotics. We present a rare case of a 55-year-old man with fracture blisters located superficial to trauma-induced rib fractures that were successfully treated with topical mupirocin.

References

1. Varela C, Vaughan TK, Carr J, et al. Fracture Blisters: Clinical and Pathologic Aspects. J of Orthopedic Trauma. 1993;7(5):417–27.

2. Wallace GF, Sullivan J. Fracture Blisters. Clin Podiatric Med Surg. 1995;12(4):801–12.

3. Giordano CP, Koval KJ, Zuckerman JD, Desai P. Fracture blisters. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 1994;(307):214-221.

4. Strauss E, Petrucelli G, Bong M, Koval K, Egol K. Blisters Associated with Lower Extremity Fracture: Results of a Prospective Treatment Protocol. J of Orthopedic Trauma. 2006 Oct;20(9):618–622.

5. Ballo F, Maroon M, Millon SJ. Fracture blisters. J Am Acad Dermatol. 1994;30:1033-1034.

6. Finklea LB, Becker LE. Hemorrhagic and serous-filled vesicles and bullae. Fracture blisters. JAMA Dermatol. 2013;149:751-756.

7. Tan CP, Ng A, Civil I. Co-morbidities in trauma patients: common and significant. N Z Med J. 2004;117:U1044.

8. Uebbing CM, Walsh M, Miller JB, Abraham M, Arnold C. Fracture Blisters. West J Emerg Med. 2011;12(1):131-133.

9. Halawi MJ. Fracture Blisters After Primary Total Knee Arthroplasty. Am J Orthop. 2015;44(8):E291-E293.

Article Sidebar

PDF
Published
Aug 29, 2020
DOI https://doi.org/10.25251/skin.4.5.11

Article Details

How to Cite
Graham, K. R., Rohr, B. R., & Marks, V. J. (2020). Blistering Rash over Broken Ribs. SKIN The Journal of Cutaneous Medicine, 4(5), 449–451. https://doi.org/10.25251/skin.4.5.11
Issue
Vol. 4 No. 5 (2020): September Issue & Poster Presentations (FCPANP20® Dermatology Conference)
Section
Brief Articles
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

All authors retain copyright in their articles. All articles published open access allowing for immediate free access to the work and permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software or use them for any other lawful purpose. Permitted reuse is defined by  the following user license:
 

Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY): lets others distribute and copy the article, to create extracts, abstracts, and other revised versions, adaptations or derivative works of or from an article (such as a translation), to include in a collective work (such as an anthology), to text or data mine the article, even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the author(s), do not represent the author as endorsing their adaptation of the article, and do not modify the article in such a way as to damage the author's honor or reputation. 

Authors retain copyright in their work and license the publisher to publish the content. The publisher is the National Society for Cutaneous Medicine, with production and publishing support provided by OJS, Open Journal Systems,see https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/.

Prior to January 2022, authors transferred copyright to the National Society for Cutaneous Medicine. However, all articles are freely available to anyone in the world. There are no subscription fees, page charges, or article processing charges.