Diagnostic Value of Sonography for Radial Tunnel Syndrome

Journal of the Korean Society for Surgery of the Hand 2005;10(4):177-180.
Published online December 1, 2005.

Dong-Jin Youn, Tae-Suk Nam, Jin-Sam Kim, Jun-O Yoon

요골관 증후군의 진단에서 초음파 검사의 유용성

윤동진, 남태석, 김진삼, 윤준오

Abstract

Purpose
Diagnosis of Radial tunnel syndrome(RTS) condition is difficult because of its close association with lateral epicondylitis. Additional laboratory tests that may help in diagnosis are nerve conduction study and electromyelography, but effectiveness of them is still controversial, which warrants different methods of diagnosis. So we hypothesized that radial recurrent artery accompanying posterior interosseous nerve (PIN) would be affected when PIN was compressed. We tried to find out the indirect evidence of compression using ultrasound doppler sonography (USG) and evaluated the following positive signs: decreased vascularity or torsion of the radial recurrent artery in radial tunnel and ill defined soft tissue infiltration on provocation test. Materials and Methods: Eight cases suspected with RTS were evaluated and 7 cases(87.5%) showed the positive findings. Conclusion: USG examination is proposed to increase the diagnostic accuracy of RTS.