Carpal tunnel syndrome: which electrodiagnostic path should we follow? A prospective study of 100 consecutive patients

We prospectively studied 100 consecutive patients (200 hands) sent to our Neurophysiopathology Service for a suspected Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (C.T.S.). We performed 6 different motor and sensitive electrodiagnostic tests on both hands of each patients and on 25 healthy subjects. We calculated the sensibility and the specificity of each test by comparing each parameter with all the other ones, and then, again, using the clinical evaluation as a "gold standard". The routinely performed tests proved to have a high sensibility in detecting C.T.S., nevertheless, sometimes they do not give a definite response. In these cases we suggest to carry out the neurophysiological examination by performing some of the newly proposed tests. We end our study by drawing a "flow-chart", which considers reliability, sensibility, difficulty in performing and/or evaluating, and discomfort for patients, of each test; by this we would give a guide and a practical aid in determining the electrophysiological path for C.T.S. diagnosis.

[Method of measuring spasticity. Studies of 12 cases of spastic patients treated with chronic epidural implanted electrodes]

The Authors have applied the method for determination of the H reflex, in order to measure the spasticity in a group of patients operated with chronic implantation of epidural electrodes. After a brief discussion about a clinical and neurophysiological problems of the spasticity, they refers the methodologie and results obtained by determination of H/M ratio and H1/H2 curve with double stimulus. They conclude that this method is rather uncertain and useful only at a approximative clinical level.

[Somatesthesic, auditory and visual evoked potentials in chronic alcoholics]

The Authors examine a group of alcoholics, recording for each patients somatosensory, auditory and visual potentials, in order to check the presence in different systems of nervous fibers of subclinic alterations; they separate a group of patients with clinic polyneuropathie and a group without polyneuropathie. Subclinic alterations are confirmed in different measure in the two groups. Vit. B12 and pholic acid are also dosed in the serum.