Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Fizik Tedavi Rehabilitasyon Dergisi, cilt.21, sa.1, ss.31-36, 1997 (Scopus)
Present study was conducted to evaluate the validity of clinical tests in diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). Outpatients with clinical suspicion of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) were included in the study. Initially, clinical tests (Phalen test, Tinel test, percussion test extension test, compression test and Flick test) were evaluated in 99 hands of 56 patients followed by electrophysiological testing. Among all, 40 hands (40%) were determined to have electrophysiologically proven CTS. In order to assess validity of clinical tests, results of ENMG were compared with the results of clinical tests. Sensitivity of Flick test (88%) was found to be the highest of all tests. But it is concluded that Flick test is not valuable in ruling out CTS since its negative predictive value (69%) is not high enough. None of the tests were determined to have high specificity. Therefore they have low validity in diagnosis of CTS. When tests were assessed with pairs, positive compression or Flick test were found to be the most sensitive (98%). Positive Phalen and percussion tests were found to be the most specific (76%). As a result, compression or Flick test can be considered as the most useful diagnostic method in screening for CTS. For diagnosis of CTS, electrodiagnostic evaluation or more specific clinical test are needed.