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In medicine, a finger tip unit (FTU) is defined as the amount of ointment, cream or other semi-solid dosage form expressed from a tube with a 5mm diameter nozzle, applied from the distal skin-crease to the tip of the index finger of an adult. ^[1] One FTU is enough to treat an area of skin twice the size of the flat of an adult's hand with the fingers together.

The unit is particularly useful when counselling patients with regards to the amount of topical steroid cream they should be applying in order to minimise the side-effects which are associated with their use.

Two FTUs are approximately equivalent to 1g of topical steroid. Figure 1 shows the approximate number of FTU's required to adequately treat a given are of the human body.

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