Search

Aneurysms of the ulnar artery and its palmar arch are usually rare events, which are mostly related to repetitive trauma of the extremity. This syndrome is also known as hypothenar hammer syndrome, which presents two pathologic entities: the aneurysmal type and the thrombotic type. Whereas surgical treatment is not necessary within the thrombotic type, it is the gold standard to treat aneurysms of the palm with resection of the aneurysm and reconstruction of the vessel with either end-to-end anastomosis, venous or arterial grafts. We report a case of a young male patient with an aneurysm of the right ulnar artery at the wrist with history of repetitive trauma. Reconstruction with a venous forearm graft showed recurrence of the aneurysm after 2 years from surgery. The authors want to elaborate an algorithm for surgical treatment to make the right decision for choice of reconstruction. Level of evidence: Level IV, therapeutic study.

Temporary or long-lasting loss of grip force after open carpal tunnel release (CTR) in carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) patients is well known and caused by changes in biomechanical conditions through sectioning of the transverse carpal ligament. We hypothesize to find predicting factors for loss of grip strength. We performed dynamometer testing of overall hand grip, tip pinch, and key pinch grip prior, 3 and 6 months after open CTR in 42 CTS subjects. Changes in these three main variables related to pre-operative grip, tip pinch and key pinch forces as well as gender and age were analyzed for significant results (t test, Pearson and Spearman correlations, descriptive statistics; 2-tailed p = .05). At 3-month post-CTR, overall hand grip force decreased significantly by 11.7% (p = .006), whereas key pinch and tip pinch only decreased by 5.6 and 3.5% (p