Effects of the treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome with surgery and injections on the medical outcomes study 36-item short form health survey (sf-36).

Objective: To assess the effects of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) treatment, with corticosteroid injection versus surgery on the punctuations of the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36). Methods: Open, randomized clinical trial, comparing injection and surgery. CTS was confirmed by electro diagnostic testing. Each patient fulfilled a subjective evaluation of symptoms with a visual analogue scale of pain
(VAS-p) and the SF-36 questionnaire, before treatment and at 3, 6 and 12-month after treatment. Statistic signification was established by the Student´s t test. Results: Sixty-five patients were eligible for the trial, with 30 patients randomly assigned to local infiltration and 35 to surgical decompression. There was no statistical difference between groups. Both groups improved significantly in the VAS-p compared with basal values at 3, 6 and 12-month follow-up. Basally, there were no statistical differences between both groups (including the eight SF-36 subscales). At 3-month follow-up both groups improved similarly. At 6-month follow-up, the surgery group had a significantly better punctuation for the general health perceptions subscale (66,0 vs 55,3; p = 0,026) and mental health subscale (74,3 vs 66,4; p = 0,021). At 12 months follow-up, the surgery group obtained a significantly better punctuation in the role-physical subscale (p = 0,041). Conclusions: In CTS treatment, both injection and surgery achieve significantly good punctuations on the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36). Despite this, surgery seems better in middle-term follow-up, in several subscales of SF-36.