Ultrasonography of Median Nerve and Electrophysiologic Severity in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
- Author:
Seok KANG
1
;
Hee Kyu KWON
;
Ki Hoon KIM
;
Hyung Seok YUN
Author Information
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords: Carpal tunnel syndrome; Ultrasonography; Electrophysiologic severity; Cross sectional area; Ratio
- MeSH: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome; Humans; Median Nerve; Sensitivity and Specificity; Wrist
- From:Annals of Rehabilitation Medicine 2012;36(1):72-79
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:English
- Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To investigate the correlation of the ultrasonographic wrist-to-forearm median nerve area ratio (WFR) and cross sectional area of median nerve at the wrist (CSA-W) to the electrophysiologic severity in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). METHOD: One hundred and ten wrists electrophysiologically graded as mild, moderate, and severe CTS and 38 healthy controls underwent ultrasonography of median nerve at the distal wrist crease and mid-forearm. WFR and CSA-W were analyzed according to the severity of CTS. RESULTS: WFR was 1.12+/-0.14, 1.91+/-0.33, 2.27+/-0.47 and 3.02+/-0.97 and the CSAs-W was 7.23+/-1.67 mm2, 13.51+/-3.72 mm2, 14.67+/-2.93 mm2, and 18.74+/-6.01 mm2 in controls, mild (n=28), moderate (n=46), and severe (n=36) CTS, respectively. CSA-W displayed significant differences between the control and the mild CTS, moderate CTS and severe CTS groups. However, there was no significant difference between mild CTS and moderate CTS groups. WFR revealed significant difference between all groups. The sensitivity and specificity of the WFR in grading the severity of CTS were higher than those of the CSA-W. CONCLUSION: Ultrasonography is a useful complementary tool for the evaluation of CTS. Both WFR and CSA-W are highly correlated with severity grade of CTS. However, WFR is superior to CSA-W for diagnosis and grading of the severity of CTS.
