Three days after finishing his first round of chemotherapy for leukemia, a 19-year-old man developed tender red patches on both hands. His doctors had several worrying possibilities to weigh, including leukemia spreading to the skin. The explanation turned out to be far more ordinary: his video game controller.
Physicians at the University at Buffalo and Women & Children's Hospital of Buffalo described the case in the dermatology journal Cutis in January 2016. They proposed that heavy gaming, combined with a chemotherapy-related drop in his platelets, caused bleeding just beneath the outermost layer of his skin.
The case is a decade old, but it belongs to a steadily growing medical record of hand and skin injuries tied to long gaming sessions.
Patches That Matched His Grip
The young man had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia two days before he was admitted to the hospital. He received a 10-day course of induction chemotherapy, the intensive first phase of treatment.
Three days after it ended, the patches appeared. They were sharply outlined, red and mildly tender, each about 1 to 1.5 centimeters across. They sat on the palm side of the base of his middle, ring and little fingers on both hands, with two more patches on his right palm.
The pattern was the key clue. The patches lined up with pressure points from gripping a controller, and he reported heavy video game use in the weeks before his admission. The report does not say how many hours he played, what console he used, or which games.
To be sure nothing more dangerous was going on, doctors took a small punch biopsy from his left middle finger. It showed bleeding and damage in the upper skin layer, with no leukemia cells and no signs of infection. The team also ruled out Sweet syndrome, an inflammatory skin condition, and eccrine hidradenitis, an inflammation of the sweat glands. The final diagnosis was traumatic subcorneal hematomas: pockets of blood trapped just below the skin's tough outer layer.
Why Low Platelets Changed the Picture
Friction from gripping a controller is normally harmless. The difference here, the authors proposed, was his blood's reduced ability to clot.
Platelets are the cell fragments that plug small leaks in blood vessels. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute says a normal count is 150,000 to 450,000 per microliter and that chemotherapy can destroy the stem cells that make platelets. The National Cancer Institute notes that people whose platelets drop during cancer treatment may bruise or bleed easily and develop tiny purple or red spots on the skin.
"We postulated that the thrombocytopenia the patient developed following chemotherapy along with prior friction injury sustained from heavy video game play led to traumatic subcorneal hemorrhage," the authors wrote. That is an explanation drawn from one patient, not proof that gaming routinely causes bleeding during chemotherapy. The paper did not report his platelet count.
The fix was simple. He stopped gaming, and the patches resolved completely over the next two months.
A Growing Catalog of Gaming Skin Conditions
The Buffalo case joins a list of hand problems doctors have tied to gaming. In 2009, dermatologists at the University Hospitals of Geneva reported "PlayStation palmar hidradenitis" in a 12-year-old girl who developed intensely painful nodules on both palms after long sessions of gripping a controller.
An even earlier report, from Australia in 2000, described a 9-year-old girl with a 6-millimeter ulcer in her palm from pressing a Nintendo 64 joystick. It healed within two weeks but left a scar.
Another case shows why these injuries can be alarming. In 2010, Australian dermatologists described pigmented spots on the index fingers of a 16-year-old who used a PlayStation 3 vibration controller. Under magnification, the spots showed a pattern typically considered a hallmark of early melanoma of the hands and feet. They proved to be blood under the skin and cleared after several weeks without gaming.
A 2021 literature review of video-game-related skin conditions in adolescents found they were mostly on the palms and fingers, and that removing the cause usually resolved them.
The problem reaches beyond the skin. A 2025 study in the journal SurgiColl analyzed U.S. emergency department data from 2001 to 2020 and estimated nearly 42,000 video-game-related injuries to the fingers, hands, wrists, and arms, most often strains and sprains. Fingers were the most commonly injured site, and people ages 10 to 19 accounted for nearly 30% of cases.
A Lesson for Patients in Treatment
For people undergoing chemotherapy, gaming can be a welcome distraction during long hospital stays, and the report does not suggest giving it up. Its lesson is about diagnosis. The authors wrote that the patient's "history of video game play prior to hospitalization proved to be of major diagnostic importance."
That detail has practical value. Unexplained red patches in someone with low platelets can raise alarms, and knowing about repetitive pressure from a device may spare a patient unnecessary worry.
Anyone receiving cancer treatment who notices new bruising, spots on the skin or unusual bleeding should tell their care team, who can check platelet levels and determine the cause.
Key Questions Answered
What happened to the patient?
A 19-year-old man being treated for acute myeloid leukemia developed tender red patches on his fingers and palms. A biopsy showed blood trapped just beneath the outer layer of skin.
Why did doctors blame video games?
The patches matched where his hands pressed against a game controller, and he had been gaming heavily. The authors proposed that friction plus low platelets from chemotherapy caused the bleeding.
Were the patches on his fingertips?
No. They were on the palm side of the base of three fingers on each hand, plus two on his right palm.
Did the condition go away?
Yes. After he stopped gaming, the patches resolved completely over about two months.
Should people on chemotherapy avoid video games?
The report does not make that recommendation. It is a single case, but patients with low platelets should report new bruising or bleeding to their care team.
Published by Medicaldaily.com
