The Appearance of the Median Nerve During Carpal Tunnel Release: Reliability of the Surgeon'S Grading of the Degree of Compression

SJ McCabe. The appearance of the median nerve during carpal tunnel release: Reliability of the surgeon's grading of the degree of compression. Can J Plast Surg 1994;2(4): 169-170. The reliability of intraoperative grading of the degree of compression of the median nerve during carpal tunnel release has never been tested, even though the appearance of the median nerve at the time of release may contain valuable information regarding the degree of compression. This study used a survey design with high-quality colour photographs of the median nerve at the time of carpal tunnel release to test the reliability of 30 surgeons grading the degree of compression. An important degree of disagreement was found in 11 % of the scores. The calculated reliability of 0.68, while not high enough to make individual treatment decisions based on the appearance of the nerve, is high enough to group patients for the purposes of clinical research.