[Carpal tunnel syndrome II. Clinico-electroneurological correlation]

In patients with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), it has frequently been observed a disparity between the clinical manifestations, especially pain, and the electroneurological (ENG) tests, the reason for which we have conducted this study, in order to assess to what extent the symptoms and signs of CTS are correlated with the ENG findings. The study included 288 hands, 190 patients with ENG diagnosis of CTS, 127 of which were women and 63 men. With respect to the sensitive manifestations observed, pain was present in 146 hands (50.87%), paresthesia in 142 hands (49.47%) and objective hypoesthesia in 43 hands (14.98). All these manifestations were significantly correlated with sustained sensitive distal latency (SDL). In addition, hypoesthesia was correlated with reduced sensitive conduction rate (SCR). Among the motor manifestations, the subjective loss of strength was referred in 102 hands (35.54%), the objective loss of strength we observed in 49 hands (17.07%) and atrophy in 22 hands (7.66%). We observed a significant correlation between objective motor signs, mainly atrophy, and altered electroneurological motor parameters; there was also a significant correlation between the time of evolution of the process and the presence of thenar atrophy. As well as with the sensitive clinical manifestations, the objective physical findings correlated more significantly with the electroneurological findings than with the subjective manifestations.