What is Clubbing of the Fingers and Toes?

Clubbing of the fingers and toes happens when an underlying disease changes the shape, size, or appearance of your nails or the surrounding area.

In fact, clubbing of the fingers or toes refers to certain physical changes to your fingernails or toenails that result from an underlying medical condition.

These changes can include the following:

  • Downward curving of the nails
  • Enlarging or bulging of the tip of the fingers or toes, which may be accompanied by redness or warmth
  • Increased angle between the cuticles and nails
  • Softening of your nail beds, which makes your nails seem like they’re floating
  • widening and increased roundness of your nails

However, these changes can develop in a matter of weeks or years, depending on the cause. Hence they can be the result of a variety of underlying medical conditions, many of which are serious.

 

Causes of Clubbing

It’s not completely understood why clubbing occurs, but certain conditions are known to activate components in the bloodstream. This activation plays a role in changing the nail bed.

Nail widening that characterizes clubbing happens when the tissue under your nail plate becomes thicker. This can be triggered by a number of conditions throughout the body. For example, clubbing often results from lung issues, such as:

  • Asbestosis, a disease that develops when you inhale asbestos fibers that scar your lung tissue
  • Bronchiectasis, a condition that occurs when your airways become widened and scarred due to infection or other factors that prevent your lungs from expelling mucus
  •  Cystic fibrosis, a genetic condition that affects how salt and water are moved throughout the body and creates thick secretions within the lungs and other organs
  • Lung cancer a disease that develops when you have abnormal lung cells that grow out of control
  • Pulmonary Fibrosis, a condition that occurs when your lung tissue becomes thick and scarred, often for unknown reasons

Symptom of Other Conditions

Clubbing can also be a symptom of several other diseases and disorders, such as:

  • Certain types of cancer, including Hodgkin’s lymphoma
  • Heart irregularities, such as tetralogy of Fallot (TOF)
  • Overactive thyroid gland, which can result from Graves Disease or other conditions
  • Inflammation of the intestines, which can result from Chron’s disease or other conditions
  • Liver disease

Treatment of Clubbing

To treat clubbing, your doctor will need to address the underlying cause of your symptoms. Your recommended treatment plan will depend on your diagnosis. For example, your doctor may prescribe:

  • A combination of chemotherapy drugs, radiation therapy, and surgery to treat cancer
  • Combination of medications, oxygen therapy, pulmonary rehabilitation, and lifestyle changes to alleviate symptoms of cystic fibrosis, pulmonary fibrosis, bronchiectasis, or asbestosis
  • Medications or lifestyle changes to treat intestinal inflammation
  • Surgery to correct TOF or another heart defect

In rare cases, your doctor may recommend a lung transplant to treat serious lung disease.

Prevention of Clubbing

The only way to prevent clubbing is by taking steps to prevent and manage the underlying conditions that cause it. For example, you can:

  • Lower your chances of developing bronchiectasis by getting vaccinated against measles and whooping cough, seeking prompt treatment for lung infections, and limiting your contact with tobacco smoke and other toxins
  • Prevent asbestosis by using protective equipment if you’re working in an industry such as construction where you might be exposed to asbestos
  • Reduce your risk of lung cancer by avoiding tobacco smoking and limiting your exposure to toxins in the workplace

If you’ve been diagnosed with a lung disease, follow your doctor’s recommended treatment plan, which may help you maintain your blood oxygen levels and prevent clubbing.

Outlook of Clubbing

Most of the underlying conditions that cause clubbing are serious. Early diagnosis and treatment may improve your outlook. Talk with your doctor if you notice any signs of clubbing of your toes or fingers.

Typically, treatment and management of clubbing is focused on treating the underlying condition. The more serious or farther along the underlying condition, the harder it may be to reverse clubbing of the fingers.

While there is not much research around the total reversal of clubbing, it has been reported in individuals undergoing  prostaglandin therapy for liver disease. Clubbing was reversed by the time their therapy was over.

 

biospecimens

 

Biospecimens

Bay Biosciences is a global leader in providing researchers with high quality, clinical grade, fully characterized human tissue samples, bio-specimens, and human bio-fluid collections.

Human biospecimens are available including cancer (tumor) tissue, cancer serum, cancer plasma, cancer peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). and human tissue samples from most other therapeutic areas and diseases.

Bay Biosciences maintains and manages its own biorepository, the human tissue bank (biobank) consisting of thousands of diseased samples (specimens) and from normal healthy donors for controls, available in all formats and types.

In fact, our biobank procures and stores fully consented, de-identified and institutional review boards (IRB) approved human tissue samples, human biofluids such as serum samples, plasma samples from various diseases and matched controls.

Also, all our human tissue collections, human biospecimens and human biofluids are provided with detailed, samples associated patient’s clinical data.

In fact, this critical patient’s clinical data includes information relating to their past and current disease, treatment history, lifestyle choices, biomarkers, and genetic information.

Additionally, patient’s data associated with the human biospecimens is extremely valuable for researchers and is used to help identify new effective treatments (drug discovery & development) in oncology, and other therapeutic areas and diseases.

Bay Biosciences banks wide variety of human tissue samples and human biological samples, including fresh frozen human biospecimens cryogenically preserved at – 80°C.

For example fresh frozen tissue samples, tumor tissue samples, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE), tissue slides, with matching human bio-fluids, whole blood and blood-derived products such as human serum, human plasma and human PBMCs.

Bay Biosciences is a global leader in collecting and providing human tissue samples according to the specified requirements and customized, tailor-made collection protocols.

Please contact us anytime to discuss your special research projects and customized human tissue sample requirements.

Types of Biospecimens

Bay Biosciences provides human tissue samples (human specimens) and human biofluids from diseased and normal healthy donors which includes:

Moreover, we can also procure most human biospecimens and human biofluids, special collections and requests for human samples that are difficult to find. All our human tissue samples and human biofluids are procured through IRB-approved clinical protocols and procedures.

In addition to the standard processing protocols, Bay Biosciences can also provide human biofluids such as  human plasma, human serum, and human PBMCs bio-fluid samples using custom processing protocols; you buy donor-specific collections in higher volumes and specified sample aliquots from us.

Bay Biosciences also provides human biospecimens from normal healthy donors; volunteers, for controls and clinical research, Contact us Now.