1999 Marmara earthquake; peripheral nerve injuries--electrophysiologic evaluation

This study evaluated the clinical, demographic and electromyographic (EMG) findings of 75 patients referred to our EMG laboratory with the preliminary diagnosis of peripheral nerve injury (PNI) during the 1999 Marmara earthquake. Forty-two patients had single and 33 had serial EMGs. Seventy-nine percent of the patients were found to have PNI. Eighty-six percent of these had PNI of the extremities and 23.7% had brachial plexus injury. PNI were detected in the upper extremities in 39% of patients, in the lower extremities in 47.5% of patients and in both extremities in 13.5% of patients. It was observed that brachial plexus degeneration was at a higher rate in patients with compartment and crush syndromes (35.70% and 42.9%) and peripheral nerve (PN) degeneration was higher in patients remaining under the debris (37%). In control EMG examinations, regeneration findings were observed at a rate of 79.2% in the upper extremities and 55.3% in the lower extremities (mean 64.5%) in the patients with PNI of the extremities and 90.9% in the patients with brachial plexus injury. In conclusion, after a mean EMG follow-up of 4 months in 75 earthquake victims a reasonably high level of regeneration findings shows that prognosis will be good in the majority of patients.