Short Term Results of Local Steroid Injection in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Authors: Fikriye Figen AYHAN-ARDIÇ, Hatice Rana ERDEM, Belgin KARAOĞLAN, Zeynep Rezan YORGANCIOĞLU, Öznür AYHAN

Abstract: The aim of this study was to verify the effects of local steroid treatment on both the clinical symptoms and motor and sensory conduction of the median nerve. Fifteen patients (20 nerves) with clinical and electrophysiological evidence of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) were included in the study. In order to assess the efficacy of local steroid therapy, clinical and electrophysiological findings were evaluated at regular intervals: before therapy, 3 weeks and 3 months after the injection. A student's t-test for paired observations was applied to evaluate clinical and electrophysiological data. At follow-up, the sensory nerve conduction velocities, distal sensory latencies and amplitudes of the median nerve showed a significant improvement trend with respect to the baseline values (p<0.05). The distal motor latency (DML) of the median nerve decreased significantly from 5.44 msec to 4.28 msec 21 days after the treatment and was 3.93 msec three months after the injection (p<0.05). By the end of the follow-up period, all of the 20 hands showed complete or partial relief of symptoms (p<0.05). In conclusion, our short term results showed that in selected patients with CTS local steroid injection causes marked improvement in clinical and electrophysiological parameters.

Keywords: Carpal tunnel syndrome, local steroid injection, median nerve electrophysiology, sensory nerve conduction, motor nerve conduction.