Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Neuro Physiology

This work is intended to compare the diagnostic value of nerve conduction studies with high-resolution ultrasound in carpal tunnel syndrome and to answer if ultrasound can safely replace the presently applied and accepted electrodiagnostic confirmation of the clinical diagnosis of CTS.Methods 60 wrists of patients with clinically and electrophysiologically defined CTS were enrolled, along with the same number of age- and sex matched controls. All patients and controls were subjected to clinical assessment , sonographic measurement of the cross-sectional area (CSA) of the median nerve and nerve conduction studies (NCS). Sensitivity and specificity of ultrasound was obtained and its ability in diagnosing CTS was assessed. Results There were no significant differences in age and gender between patients and controls (p{uF03E} 0.05). The CSA at the tunnel inlet was significantly larger in patients than in controls (p= 0.001). It is noted that the US sensitivity is high in differentiating the patients from the control subjects and between early CTS from controls, but it is low in differentiating early CTS from mild and mild from moderate CTS. Conclusion our study shows that both NCS and US help the diagnosis of CTS and supports the use of US as a screening tool for detection of CTS and as a complementary test to NCS ,but it cannot replace the NCS

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