Hand Infections Across Tissue Planes: A Pictorial Review

Infections of the hand are encountered across emergency medicine, primary care, and surgical practice, and their outcomes depend heavily on early recognition. The complex anatomy of the hand, with its multiple fascial planes, tendon sheaths, and confined spaces, allows infection to spread rapidly and produce lasting functional impairment when treatment is delayed. This pictorial review presents a series of clinically important hand infections drawn from the archive of a board-certified hand surgeon, spanning common superficial conditions to uncommon but limb-threatening deep-space, articular, and osseous disease. For each entity, we summarize characteristic clinical features, useful diagnostic and imaging findings, likely causative organisms, and initial management, illustrated with representative clinical photographs and imaging. By organizing these conditions across tissue planes, the review offers a practical, pattern-based reference that clinicians can use at the point of care to triage urgency, select empiric therapy, and identify patients who require early referral or operative intervention.