Failure factors for carpal tunnel syndrome surgical treatment: When and how to perform a revision carpal tunnel decompression surgery

• Published in: Revista brasileira de ortopedia 2022-10, Vol.57 (5), p.718-725
• Main Authors: Fernandes, Carlos Henrique, Santos, João Baptista Gomes Dos, Schwartz-Fernandes, Francisco, Ostermann, A Lee, Faloppa, Flávio
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Artigo de Atualização; carpal tunnel syndrome/complications; carpal tunnel syndrome/diagnosis; carpal tunnel syndrome/surgery; ORTHOPEDICS; recurrence; surgical flaps
• ISSN: 0102-3616; 1982-4378; 1982-4378
• DOI: 10.1055/s-0040-1713759

Despite being a procedure widely used all over the world with high rates of symptom remission, surgical treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome may present unsatisfactory outcomes. Such outcomes may be manifested clinically by non-remission of symptoms, remission of symptoms with recurrence a time after surgery or appearance of different symptoms after surgery. Different factors are related to this unsuccessful surgical treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome. Prevention can be achieved through a thorough preoperative clinical evaluation of the patient. As such, the surgeon will be able to make differential or concomitant diagnoses, as well as determine factors related to patient dissatisfaction. Perioperative factors include the correct identification of anatomical structures for complete median nerve decompression. Numerous procedures have been described for managing postoperative factors. Among them, the most common is adhesion around the median nerve, which has been treated with relative success using different vascularized flaps or autologous or homologous tissue coverage. The approach to cases with unsuccessful surgical treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome is discussed in more detail in the text.