Evaluating the Effectiveness of Surgical Treatment and Local Steroid Injection in Patients with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Background: Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is considered as the most common entrapment neuropathy. Median nerve release by surgery is a manual therapy intervention used for treating CTS. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of surgical decompression with respect to local steroid injection in the treatment of idiopathic. Methods: In this study, 100 patients with mild and moderate carpal tunnel syndrome were assigned to two equal groups. In one group, patients received a single local injection of triamcinolone acetonide and in the other one, open carpal tunnel release was used. A number of variables including pain (based on Visual Analogue Scale), symptom severity and functional status (based on Bostone/ Levine symptom severity and functional status scale) were assessed at the baseline and after a 6-month follow-up. Analysis was carried by intention to treat. Results : the severity of symptoms in the surgery and injection groups was 2.51 and 2.61 respectively. However, in the follow-up, the severity of symptoms in the surgery group (1.77) was significantly lower than the injection group (2.62) (p