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Endoscopic carpal tunnel release had better outcomes vs open carpal tunnel release
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LAS VEGAS — Patients who underwent endoscopic carpal tunnel release experienced a quicker recovery and better patient-reported outcomes compared with patients who underwent open carpal tunnel release, according to results presented at the American Society for Surgery of the Hand Annual Meeting.
William Slikker III, MD, and colleagues collected QuickDASH scores, pain scores and satisfaction of 1,131 patients who underwent either open (n=892) or endoscopic (n=239) carpal tunnel release.
Results showed improvements in QuickDASH scores and hand function in both groups during the first 3 weeks postoperatively. Although scores plateaued at 6 months postoperatively, Slikker noted patients who underwent endoscopic carpal tunnel release had lower QuickDASH scores and better function throughout the recovery process.
“If you can get a QuickDASH of less than 15, then most people would say that is considered full recovery [and] that person is back to doing normal activities in life,” Slikker said in his presentation here. “You will notice the endoscopic group reaches that easily through most of the recovery process, but amazingly at 1 year for the mini open approach, they never reach that level.”
He added that pain scores decreased in both groups, but patients in the endoscopic carpal tunnel release group had statistically significantly less pain overall.
“Satisfaction scores are hard to interpret. [There is] a lot of variation here, so I would not read too much into it, but the open carpal tunnel release has a bit of a stepwise dissatisfaction over time,” Slikker said. – by Casey Tingle
Reference:
Slikker W 3rd, et al. Abstract 12. Presented at: American Society for Surgery of the Hand Annual Meeting; Sept. 5-7, 2019; Las Vegas.
Disclosure: Slikker reports no relevant financial disclosures.