A research team discovered that fluorescein angiography is beneficial for visualizing and evaluating blood flow in severely injured nerves during open carpal tunnel release surgery.
In today’s work environment, it’s often a challenge to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome from developing. In serious cases, this may require surgical intervention to relieve nerve compression or to fix damaged nerves. Providing surgeons with a way to visually examine areas where blood flow to the nerves has diminished, due to ongoing nerve compression, can enhance the precision of diagnoses, evaluations of severity, and predictions of surgical outcomes.
With this goal in mind, a team from Osaka Metropolitan University, which included Graduate School of Medicine student Kosuke Saito and Associate Professor Mitsuhiro Okada, explored the application of fluorescein angiography. This technique, commonly used in neurosurgery and ophthalmology, highlights blood vessels to examine blood flow in cases of chronic nerve compression neuropathies such as carpal tunnel syndrome.
The researchers found that fluorescein angiography was able to identify reduced blood flow in the nerves of rats and rabbits suffering from chronic nerve compression neuropathy. These findings also aligned well with results from electrodiagnostic tests.
Furthermore, fluorescein angiography was applied to human patients undergoing open carpal tunnel release surgery, revealing strong correlations with electrodiagnostic assessments. These results suggest that fluorescein angiography could have significant diagnostic potential for evaluating nerve blood flow during surgical procedures.
“In surgeries addressing severe chronic nerve compression neuropathy, a surgeon’s expertise is crucial for determining the appropriate surgical approach and whether further treatment is required,” said graduate student Saito. “Our research has demonstrated that fluorescein angiography can highlight damaged areas and evaluate the extent of the impairment, indicating that it could enhance accuracy in related surgical practices.”
The results of this study were published in Neurology International.
