Prevalence of carpal tunnel syndrome in patients with cervical radiculopathy

ABSTRACT

A remarkable number of out patients referred to physical medicine, orthopedic, neurologic clinics are the ones with the chief complaint of sensory-motor dysfunction in the distribution of median nerve on hands and upper limbs. Usually, it is thought these symptoms and singns are due to carpal tunnel syndrome [CTS] existence. However, in the majority of cases symptoms are not eliminated in spite of the most invasive treatments [e.g. surgical release of median nerve at wrist]. Further studies such as electrodiagnosis confirm radiculopathy in these patients. Several studies in past years have estimated the synchronous prevalence of CTS and Radiculopathy to be 22 to 70 percent. On the basis of these the double crush syndrome theory has been suggested. Estimation of synchronous prevalence of CTS and radiculopathy is a way to confirm this theory. This study is a descriptive study. The patients studied were persons with the numerous complaints in the upper limb and cervical area that had existence of radiculopathy in them been confirmed by several means such as physical examination and Electrodiagnosis. 183 patients were entered in the study and they considered from the aspect of synchronous prevalence of CTS. From 183 patients entered in the study, due to bilateral radiculopathies in both upper limbs in some patients, the total number of upper limbs studied were 264. Among them the existence of synchronous CTS in 96 upper limbs was confirmed [36.6%]. Percentages of different roots radiculopthies prevalence were as following [C6]; 75%, [C7] 93.75% and [C8] 3.12%. According to 36.6% prevalence of synchronous CTS in patients with cervical radiculopathy, this rate is less than that of previous studies but more than that of recent studies. Although frequency of involved roots in this study doesn't fit with previous studies but match with electrodiagnosis texts