Carpal tunnel syndrome: Diagnosis and surgical treatment

Abstract

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a compressive idiopathic neuropathy, most commonly affecting the median nerve in the upper extremity. CTS have high prevalence, with up to 70% of cases in women aged between 45 and 60 years. Typical manifestations of CTS are numbness of the index and middle fingers, which also become painful and cause the patient to awaken from sleep. In the period from January 2008 to October 2011 at the Orthopedics Clinic of the University of Kosovo, surgery for decompression of the median nerve was performed for 32 patients with CTS. The patients had an average age of 49.1 years. After surgery, 81.25% of the patients experienced complete improvement, whereas partial improvements were noted in 18.75% of the patients. This treatment is easy and feasible, has high efficiency, can be performed under local anaesthesia, and confers improvements in terms of return to daily activities, with low risk of complications or relapse.