Summary

The patiens with an intracompartmental septum presented shorter interval to disappreance of symptom than which had not. This can interpreted as an effect of bias of amount in steroid injection regardless of intracompartmental septum. Therefore, when intracompartmental septum is identified by ultrasonography guide, injection of steroid equally to the EPB and APL may extend the period of symptom fr

Abstract

Background

The intracompartmental septum exists usually between extensor pollicis brevis (EPB) and abductor pollicis longus (APL) of the first dorsal extensor compartment. Several studies have suggested that the intracompartmental septum may correlate with failure of non-surgical treatments. Corticosteroid injection which is one of widely known non-surgical treatment usually does not distinguish each compartment despite the anatomical variance. The goals of our study were to evaluate the significance of intracompartmental septum in De quervain’s disease who underwent operative treatment by analyzing the pre-operative existence rate and clinical outcomes.

Materials And Methods

Forty patients who underwent surgical treatment for De Quervain’s disease were analyzed from February 2013 to May 2015. Existence of intracompartmental septum were evaluated intraopeatively. The frequency of steroid injection, symptom free period after steroid injection and the interval to surgery were analyzed

Results

Intraoperatively, an intracompartmental septum was present in 27 of 40 (67.5%) patients. The number of injection were at average of 1.8 in group of intracompartmental septum and 1.2 in group of absence of intracomparmental septum. Which present no difference. Similarly, The interval to surgery show no difference with mean period of 11.2months in the former and 14.2months in the latter. The mean period of symptom free were 4.6 months in intracompartmental septum group and 10.9 months in absent group which showed significant statistical difference.

Conclusion

The patiens with an intracompartmental septum presented shorter interval to disappreance of symptom than which had not. This can interpreted as an effect of bias of amount in steroid injection regardless of intracompartmental septum. Therefore, when intracompartmental septum is identified by ultrasonography guide, injection of steroid equally to the EPB and APL may extend the period of symptom free.