Electrophysiological phalen’s provocation test in carpal tunnel syndrome

Objective Routine nerve conduction studies (NCS) are considered the golden standard for the objective diagnosis of clinically detectable carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS); however, fallacies can still befall. Clinically, phalen’s provocation test has proven reliability for screening CTS, yet, its use during NCS is still to be assessed. Thus, we aim to evaluate the role of our newly proposed electrophysiological Phalen’s provocation test (EPPT) in the diagnostic work-up of CTS. Patients and Methods One-hundred clinically suspected CTS hands and forty healthy hands were included in this study. Routine median motor and sensory NCSs were performed twice; once before and secondly, after provocation with wrist in 90 degrees flexion for 60 seconds (EPPT). Results All patients showed significantly delayed median distal motor and sensory latencies than controls (P