Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

What is the role of steroid injection in carpal tunnel syndrome?

Injection of corticosteroid into the carpal tunnel has been used as a treatment for some years. But what does the published evidence have to say about whether it works or not?

In my own experience, injection of steroid and / or local anaesthetic into the carpal tunnel area is effective in about half of the patients that I see. Some of them gain lasting relief of the carpal tunnel symptoms and others find that the symptoms of tingling in the median nerve skin area return a month or two after the injection.

Recent Studies on Steroid Injection for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Two small but quite good quality studies have been published recently. These are what is known as randomised controlled studies and the results of this kind of study are usually (but not always) reliable.

Both studies showed that injection with steroid into the carpal tunnel produced benefit with about a month of the injection. The benefit was sustained in many of the patients.

The studies compared carpal tunnel steroid injection with placebo injection. Placebo injection is when both the doctor and the patient think that an active drug is being injected but when - in truth - only an inert and inactive liquid is in the syringe.

The patients who were given the active drug typically reported an improvement in their symptoms of about 70% - compared with improvement of about 15% in the patients who were given a placebo.

The risks of steroid injection into the carpal tunnel are small but not zero. Some people find the injection to be very painful for two or three days afterwards. There is a small risk that the injected liquid may enter a blood vessel or may be injected into the median nerve itself. This last problem is rare but can potentially be very serious.

Dr Gordon Cameron's website contains more information about carpal tunnel syndrome and its treatment

Dr Gordon Cameron is a joint pain specialist based in Edinburgh, Scotland. He has a special interest in whiplash injury assessment, lower back pain treatment and in carpal tunnel syndrome

Latest News


BioImagene CEO, Dr. Ajit Singh, Speaks On Enabling Personalized ...
MarketWatch - 1 hour ago
Digital pathology, a key enabler for personalized medicine, will aid clinicians in managing and interpreting data from a whole new set of diagnostic tests ...
Aperio Introduces SecondSlide(TM) Digital Slide Sharing Network MarketWatch
all 16 news articles

Salem-News.Com

Medicine for the Job Market
New York Times, United States - 11 hours ago
By JONATHAN GRUBER A CENTRAL feature of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was an aggressive plan to expand health insurance coverage by subsidizing ...
New Report Shows Slower Premium Growth, But Increasing Pressure to ... MarketWatch
Health Corps Harvard International Review
Research database from the US Library of Medicine The Plain Dealer - cleveland.com
Belleville News Democrat - Senior-Spectrum
all 203 news articles

SmartAboutHealth

American College of Surgeons Comments on Institute of Medicine ...
MarketWatch - 19 hours ago
CHICAGO, Dec 03, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The American College of Surgeons (ACS) today recognized the Institute of Medicine (IOM) for its ...
BMC Internal Medicine Residency Program Achieves National ... iBerkshires.com
Report urges more sleep for medical residents Los Angeles Times
Medical Residents Must Sleep After 16 Hours, Experts Urge Washington Post
New York Times - Peoria Journal Star
all 328 news articles

Research and Markets: 2008 Integrative Medicine and Dietary ...
MarketWatch - 1 hour ago
In this 32-page issue, we offer a breakdown of 2007 US Complementary and Alternative Medicine sales data and provides a detailed analysis of new integrative ...

Javno.hr

34 Nigerian Children Dead From Tainted Medicine
Voice of America - Dec 3, 2008
By VOA News Nigerian health officials say they are flying in doses of an antidote for a poisoned teething medicine that has now killed 34 infants. ...
'Toxic' syrup kills Nigerian babies Aljazeera.net
Teething mixture kills more Nigerian babies Monsters and Critics.com
Nigeria infant drug toll hits 34, antidote flown in Reuters South Africa
The Associated Press - NgEX
all 113 news articles

Research database from the US Library of Medicine
The Plain Dealer - cleveland.com, OH - 3 hours ago
Search PubMed, Clinicaltrials.gov, the CDC and a dozen other medical sites - all at once. AP MEDICAL VIDEO by Michael O'Malley and Joan Mazzolini/Plain ...

A New Index of Preventive Medicine Companies
Motley Fool - 16 hours ago
The accompanying table [click to enlarge] presents statistics and the top 15 rated companies in the ETF Innovators [ETFI] Preventive Medicine Index. ...

American Academy of Dermatology Issues Position Statement on Vitamin D
MarketWatch - 1 hour ago
The currently recommended adequate intake levels established by the Institute of Medicine may be revised upward due to evolving research on the increasing ...

NIGERIA: Jos displaced grapple with food, water, medicine shortages
IRINnews.org, NY - 2 hours ago
JOS, 4 December 2008 (IRIN) - Water, medicine and food supplies are running low for an estimated 10000 people displaced by violence in Jos, northern Nigeria ...

TheMedGuru

"Rogue" stem cell clinics exploit hope: report
Reuters - 13 hours ago
"The direct-to-consumer portrayal of stem cell medicine is optimistic and unsupported by published evidence," Timothy Caulfield of the University of Alberta ...
Scientists warn of “rogue” online stem cell clinics p2pnet.net
Internet stem-cell clinics 'exploiting' MS and Parkinson's patients Times Online
The International Society for Stem Cell Research Releases New ... MarketWatch
MIT Technology Review - MarketWatch
all 393 news articles

Resources


    Sorry Currently Unavailable