Characteristics of nerve conduction studies in carpal tunnel syndrome

Park, Sung Joo; Kang, Sa-Yoon

doi:2017.14.2.84

J Med Life Sci > Volume 14(2); 2017 > Article

Original Article

Journal of Medicine and Life Science 2017;14(2):84-87.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22730/jmls.2017.14.2.84 Published online December 18, 2018.

손목굴증후군에서 신경전도검사의 특성

Characteristics of nerve conduction studies in carpal tunnel syndrome

Sung Joo Park, Sa-Yoon Kang

Correspondence: Sa-Yoon Kang,

Abstract

Nerve conduction studies are used for the electrodiagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), with a wide range of sensitivity and specificity reported for each tests in clinical studies. The aim of this study was to compare the diagnostic accuracy of various nerve conduction tests and determine the properties of the most accurate test. Forty patients with clinically confirmed CTS and 40 healthy controls were included in the study. All patients and controls underwent various nerve conduction study protocols for CTS. The mean age was 53±11.6 years and the female to male ratio was 2:1. The mean duration of disease was 1.25±0.61 years. The median nerve motor latency was 4.35±0.63ms while the sensory latency was 3.47±0.58ms. The median nerve orthodromic sensory latency was found to be 2.51±0.32 ms. The conduction velocity across the palm and wrist was 28.7 m/s. The sensitivity was the highest in the inching method (89.6%) and lowest for the conventional median motor and sensory latencies. Addition of a single test of median and ulnar sensory latency, the median and radial sensory latency or the inching method, in routine protocol will improve the sensitivity for the diagnosis of CTS in all patients.

Key Words: Carpal tunnel syndrome, Median nerve, Nerve conduction study, Sensitivity