Utility of the cutaneous silent period in the evaluation of carpal tunnel syndrome

Abstract

Objective: This study investigates the utility of the cutaneous silent period (CuSP) in evaluating patients with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS).Methods: The authors measured the CuSP from the abductor pollicis brevis muscle in 135 hands of patients with idiopathic CTS and 30 hands of age- and gender-matched controls. The patient group was further divided into subgroups according to the Canterbury scale. The differences in parameters between the patient subgroups and control group were analysed. A predetermined analysis looked at the possible correlation between the CuSP and symptom severity as measured by the Boston-Questionnaire.Results: The mean CuSP latencies in the patient group (72.4 +/- 16.1 ms) was significantly longer than the control group (64.6 +/- 13.4 ms; P = 0.014), although there was no difference in the duration of the CuSP between groups. The duration and latency of the CuSP correlated to a higher severity on the Canterbury scale (r = 0.273, P < 0.001 and r = -0.164, P = 0.036, respectively). However, the CuSP parameters did not correlate with the Boston-Questionnaire scores.Conclusions: Although patients with CTS had significantly prolonged CuSP latency, the CuSP did not correlate with the clinical symptoms scale.Significance: The CuSP is a useful ancillary test to evaluate Ad fibre function; however, it is not a reliable tool to quantify clinical severity.