NERVE WOUNDS: Doctors have proposed warning stickers be placed on avocados to alert consumers to the dangers of de-stoning them with a knife.
The move is in an attempt to cut down on the number of debilitating hand injuries they are having to treat.
The doctors from the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the Royal London Hospital collected data on a consecutive series of patients who were referred to them with a history of having stabbed their hand while attempting to de-stone an avocado between 2000 and 2003.
Some 10 patients, nine female and one male, presented with what they termed as an "increasingly common injury" during the period under review. Their average age was 34 years.
"In all cases the non-dominant hand was injured typically in the second or third web space. All were referred due to neurological symptoms.
"Operative findings revealed that all had sustained a partial or complete division of the digital nerve and artery/flexor tendon.
"All 10 patients were educated professionals, yet unaware of safe methods of de-stoning an avocado," the authors of the study Mr Charles Nduka, Ms Helena van Dam and Mr Mohammed Shibu said.
They presented the study Self Inflicted Hand Injuries: Beware the Avocado! at the British Association of Plastic Surgeons summer meeting at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
They warned that hands with nerve injuries "rarely recover their previous level of function".