Thoracic outlet syndrome.
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Brachial Plexus↗
Biomedical subjects
Christine B Novak
Publications and source records attributed to Christine B Novak.
Prevalence of smoking, obesity, diabetes mellitus, and thyroid disease in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome.
Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) has been associated frequently with physical factors and personal factors including smoking, obesity, diabetes mellitus, and hypothyroidism. The purpose of this retrospective case-control study was to evaluate the prevalence of personal factors in patients with CTS compared with a normal control group. The charts of 514 patients who underwent a carpal tunnel release procedure and 100 control subjects were examined for history of smoking, obesity, diabetes, and hypothyroidism. Compared with the control subjects, there were significantly less CTS patients who smoked (p < 0.001; odds ratio, 0.17). However, there were more CTS patients than control subjects who were obese (p = 0.02; odds ratio, 1.77), had diabetes (p = 0.03; odds ratio, 3.02), and had hypothyroidism (p = 0.02; odds ratio, 3.70). These results support previous reports that CTS is multifactorial, with such factors as obesity, hypothyroidism, and diabetes but not smoking to be more prevalent in this group of CTS patients.
Body Mass Index↗
Patient self-reported outcome after ulnar nerve transposition.
Subjective outcome was assessed in 100 patients with cubital tunnel syndrome at least 2 years after anterior transmuscular transposition of the ulnar nerve. The mean time from surgery was 37 months (standard deviation, 10 months). The patient sample of 119 operated cases included 81 unilateral procedures and 19 patients had bilateral procedures. The mean time between surgeries was 7 months. Sixty-one patients who underwent unilateral procedures reported improvement, and there was no difference in 13 unilateral cases. Thirteen patients who underwent bilateral procedures reported improvement in both arms. Postoperatively symptoms were significantly less than those preoperatively: pain, p = 0.001; cold sensitivity, p = 0.001; tingling, p = 0.05; and numbness p = 0.08. In 51 cases, patients reported normal sensation and in 45 cases patients reported normal strength. Reported outcome was significantly better in nonsmokers than in smokers (p = 0.02) but was not significantly different in patients with workers' compensation/litigation (p = 0.51), obesity (p = 0.16), abnormal preoperative nerve conduction studies (p = 0.21), concomitant carpal tunnel syndrome (p = 0.95), or brachial plexus nerve compression (p = 0.35).
Adult↗
Evaluation of nerve injury and nerve compression in the upper quadrant.
Evaluation of the patient with nerve compression and/or nerve injury should include a complete motor and sensory evaluation to establish the level and degree of injury and/or compression. No one test has been accepted as the standard procedure for the evaluation of sensibility. The various sensory tests available for patient assessment will yield different information regarding the integrity of the quickly and slowly adapting sensory receptors. Tests such as provocative maneuvers and sensory thresholds (cutaneous and vibration) will be more sensitive in the evaluation of patients with nerve compression, and other discriminatory measures will yield better functional information in patients with nerve injury.
Humans↗