[Two post-traumatic "Gilliatt-Sumner hands" from decompensation of thoracic outlet syndrome]

The clinical picture of hand atrophy related to a cervical rib has been well described in 1970 by Gilliatt and Sumner. These authors reported a series of nine patients whose motor status was stabilized following decompressive surgery of the brachial plexus. We report two young patients decompensating a predisposed thoracic outlet (rudimentary cervical rib), following a scapular or cervical trauma. After several years of neck and arm painful complaints, the two patients progressively developed hand atrophy. One patient had been operated both at cervical (double discectomy and disc prosthesis) and elbow (ulnar nerve neurolysis) levels, before the diagnosis of thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS) was attained. Decompression of the brachial plexus by anterior approach has improved the painful symptoms and stabilized the motor status of our two patients. The diagnosis of plexus disease was reached in our two patients at the "true" neurogenic TOS stage (hand atrophy), evolving several years after a "disputed" neurogenic TOS (subjective complaints). These cases remind us to keep in mind the diagnosis of TOS in front of a cervicobrachialgia not or insufficiently explained by a cervical pathology.