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Short segment stimulation of the anterior transposed ulnar nerve at the elbow
T Paternostro-Sluga1, R Ciovika, E Turkof
1Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria. Tatjana.Pasternostro-Sluga@akh-wien.ac.at
Objective:
To determine whether short segment stimulation after anterior subcutaneous transposition of the ulnar nerve reaches normal values and correlates with postoperative clinical findings.
Design:
Comparative cross-sectional study.
Setting:
Outpatient clinic of a university department of physical medicine and rehabilitation.
Patients:
Nineteen patients (15 men, 4 women) with 21 surgically treated ulnar neuropathies at the elbow; and 19 healthy controls (11 men, 8 women) with 24 measured nerves.
Interventions:
Assessed motor function of ulnar innervated muscles and staged into 4 categories; used questionnaire to assess clinical course of the nerve lesion and graded into 5 categories; took electrophysiologic recordings to measure motor conduction velocity and compound muscle action potentials; and studied short segment stimulation across elbow and lower arm.
Main Outcome Measures:
Mean +/- standard deviation of ulnar short segment conduction time across the elbow, amplitude and motor conduction velocity; grading of ulnar nerve lesions; grading of the course of disease after surgery; and logistic regression and correlation (Spearman's correlation coefficient) for electrophysiologic and clinical parameters.
Results:
Sixteen nerves showed focal conduction slowing in patients. No significant correlation between the course of disease and electrophysiologic parameters was seen. For stepwise logistic regression, there was a significant effect between grade of nerve lesion and amplitude, but no significant effect between the course of disease and electrophysiologic parameters.
Conclusion:
A focal conduction slowing across the elbow after anterior subcutaneous transposition does not correlate with postoperative clinical findings.