Participants
Tinel's nerve percussion, paresthesia, numbness, elbow injury, pain, cubital tunnel syndrome, Tinel, clawhand deformity
MUSCLE WEAKNESS, MUSCLE ATROPHY, PARESTHESIA, DIABETES MELLITUS, VASCULAR DISEASE, SECONDARY, CUBITAL TUNNEL SYNDROME, PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY
Participants in this randomized clinical trial were cubital tunnel syndrome patients who required surgical treatment after ineffective conservative treatment at our hospital from June 2018 to June 2021. The patients were divided by a randomized digits table into two groups. The control group underwent conventional surgery, and the electrical stimulation (ES) group underwent intraoperative electrical stimulation. The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Hebei Cangzhou Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine, and all the participants signed informed written consent.The patients were diagnosed with cubital tunnel syndrome through physical examination, electromyography, and ultrasonography, and the conservative treatment was ineffective. The preoperative physical examination met all the criteria: 1. numbness of ulnar nerve innervation region; 2. dorsal interosseous muscle atrophy; 3. clinical Tinel's sign or positive for the elbow flexion test; 4. clawhand deformity; 5. fractioned measurement of the nerve conduction velocity with stimulation of the ulnar nerve at the wrist, distally and proximally to the cubital tunnel (with a distance of more than 10 cm).The inclusion criteria were: 1. diagnosed with cubital tunnel syndrome; 2. ineffective conservative treatment; 3. having paresthesia, numbness, muscle weakness, or pain in ulnar nerve distribution; 4. having positive electromyography and Tinel's nerve percussion test results.The exclusion criteria were: 1. having previous elbow injury or other secondary associated pathologies; 2. having previous peripheral neuropathy; 3. having metallic implants or non-magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) safe active implants; 4. having diabetes mellitus, vascular disease, or other polyneuropathies.Of the 207 patients included in the eligibility assess, 25 were excluded. A total of 182 patients were randomized into the two groups. Participants were followed up for 6 months. Finally, 87 cases in the control group and 89 cases in the ES group were analyzed. Study flow diagram was shown in Fig. Study flow diagram