Hi,
Long story short, I recently broke my middle finger. In the process, I had an x-ray of my hand, and I saw an Orthopedist, who mentioned that the distal phalanges on my left ring finger had a lesion in it as a "incidental finding", and that my distal phalanges was a weak bone as a result of it. At the time, he asked me if I had experienced pain with it, and I had said no. He went on to say, that lesion like this sometimes (but rarely) could be a result of lung cancer or some other type of cancer (I can't recall) metastasizing into this bone.He said to me that the radiological signature did not look like it was cancerous, but instead most likely benign, but follow up was recommended. This still got me very concerned, and anxious at even the possibility.
After, I spoke with the Orthopedist, I remembered that, about 9 months-1 year ago, I had a finger infection (which I did not treat with a doctor), that appeared to come out of no where as I specifically recall not injuring it or anything notable at the time of the infection. I remember it took a couple weeks for it to go away, but it finally did on it's own. I don't know if this forum will accept image links, but my recollection is that I had red/tenderness (but no bumps) pretty much all along the finger nail side of the Distal Phalanges, my best recollection was it looked something similar to http://fingerinfection.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/finger-infection-1.jpg
My question is this, could an infection like this create a lasting radiological signature in the bone, that, without this knowledge during the consultation I had with the Orthopedist would lead to a wrong interpretation of the radiological signature? Or is the opposite true, where the infection might of been a result of the lesion that was found on the x-ray? I can't seem to find any good answer about this anywhere, whether or not an infection could do this to the bone or not?
Thank you so much in advance for your answer.