Evaluation of Factors Associated with Night Pain in Women Undergoing Carpal Tunnel Release

Background: Night pain has important diagnostic and prognostic values in patients with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). We aimed to determine whether night pain is associated with certain patient characteristics in female patients undergoing carpal tunnel release.

Methods: We recruited 75 women with the mean age of 54 years who were scheduled for carpal tunnel release. Diagnosis of CTS was made based on both the clinical symptoms and the results of electrophysiologic studies. Patient characteristics investigated as factors potentially associated with night pain were: age, body mass index (BMI), symptom duration, comorbidities such as diabetes mellitus (DM) and thyroid disease, electrophysiologic severity of CTS, and sleep position. We conducted a logistic regression analysis to examine the relationships between the presence of night pain and the different patients' demographic and clinical variables.

Results: Absence of night pain was associated with increased age (odds ratio (OR), 0.918, 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.851 to 0.99) and presence of DM (OR, 0.196; 95% CI, 0.046 to 0.835). The other variables assessed were not found to be associated with presence or absence of night pain.

Conclusions: This study found that in women undergoing carpal tunnel release, older patients or those having DM are slightly less likely to have night pain. As night pain is an important prognostic factor for CTS, further studies are warranted to determine whether the absence of night pain could affect outcome assessment of CTS in the elderly or patients with DM.