Relation of anthropometric hand measurements to idiopathic carpal tunnel syndrome

Abstract EN

Context Certain individuals are more prone to developing idiopathic carpal tunnel syndrome (ICTS) than others, suggesting that certain personal factors can be implicated in its occurrence.

Aim The aim of this work was to study anthropometric hand and wrist measurements in ICTS patients, and to correlate them with median nerve electrophysiologic study.

Patients and methods The study included 50 patients with clinically diagnosed and electrophysiologically confirmed ICTS and 50 age-matched and sex-matched healthy volunteers as the control group.

Both groups performed sensory and motor conduction studies of the median nerve.

External hand and wrist anthropometric measurements were taken for both groups including wrist depth and width, wrist ratio (WR), palm length and width, third digit length, and hand ratio (HR).

Results Patients had significantly higher wrist depth (P=0.000), higher WR (P=0.000), shorter palm length (P=0.002), shorter hand length (P=0.001), and lower HR (P=0.000).

Patients had more square wrists and shorter hands.

Some of these measurements correlated well with median nerve conduction study parameters.

Wrist depth and WR were positively correlated with median motor and sensory latencies (P=0.000) and negatively correlated with median motor and sensory amplitudes (P=0.000), and sensory conduction velocity (P=0.000).

HR was negatively correlated to median motor and sensory latencies (P=0.01) and positively correlated to median motor (P=0.001) and sensory amplitudes (P=0.039), and sensory conduction velocity (P=0.001).

Palm width was negatively correlated with median motor amplitude (P=0.043).

Conclusion Certain hand anthropometric characteristics predispose to ICTS.

Short hand and square wrist configurations could predict the development of ICTS.