Aspiration

Drawing fluid out of a cyst or a joint through a needle. For a ganglion it is quick and done in the clinic, sometimes guided by ultrasound or combined with a steroid injection, but the cyst comes back in about half of cases or more — more often than after surgical excision.

Related terms

• Condition

  Ganglion cyst

  A benign cyst filled with thick, clear mucin and joined by a stalk to a nearby joint capsule or tendon sheath; its wall has no true synovial lining. It is the commonest lump of the hand and wrist and arises most often on the back of the wrist over the scapholunate ligament, on the front of the wrist beside the radial artery, from a finger's flexor tendon sheath, or as a mucous cyst at the end joint. About half resolve without treatment.

• Treatment

  Corticosteroid injection

  Injection of a steroid medicine into or around an inflamed or thickened structure — a tendon sheath, a joint, or a raised scar — to reduce swelling and pain. Used for trigger finger and carpal tunnel syndrome, and to flatten hypertrophic scars and keloids.

Articles mentioning this term

1. Patient information · 2 October 2026

   Ganglion cysts

   Ganglion cysts of the wrist and fingers: why they form, why many go away on their own, what needle drainage and surgery can do, and the risks.

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