Aim:

In this study, we aimed to investigate whether there is a difference in patients with electrophysiologically mild and moderate carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) in terms of pain severity, clinical symptoms, muscle strength and grip strength.

Materials and Methods:

This study is a retrospective study, 18 patients with mild CTS (24hands), 22 patients with moderate CTS (28hands) were enroled by examining the data of patients admitted to the electroneuromyography (ENMG) laboratory between February-May2014. Patients' demographic characteristics were recorded. Tinnel and Phalen tests, presence of thenar atrophy and hypoesthesia, scores of Visuel analog scale (VAS) and Douleur Neuropathique-4 (DN4) questionnaire were recorded. Manual muscle test scores of abductor pollicis brevis (APB), flexor pollicis brevis (FPB) and opponens pollicis (OP) muscles and grip strength values previously measured with a dynamometer were recorded.

Results:

18 patients (24 hands) with mild CTS and 22 patients (28 hands) with moderate CTS were detected. The patients with mild CTS were classified as Group 1 and patients with moderate CTS were classified as Group 2. The groups did not differ in terms of demographic data (p>0.05). There was no significant difference in terms of Tinnel test, Phalen test, sensory examination, manual muscle strength of APB, FPB, OP muscles and presence of thenar atrophy between the groups (p>0.05). There was no significant difference in terms of grip strength between the two groups (p=0.200). VAS pain scores were significantly higher in group 2 than that of Group-1 (p=0.031). There was no statistically significant difference in terms of DN4 scores between two groups (p=0.474).

Conclusion:

There is no significant difference except pain severity between patients with mild and moderate CTS. It would be better to plan conservative treatment strategies according to pain severity.

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