ArticleAnnals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England2019
Carpal tunnel decompression in primary care: what is the infection risk and is it safe and effective?
Article in Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Wound Irrigation Prior to Closure During Routine Upper-Extremity Surgery: Is There a Difference in Wound Complications?Hand (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- The application of human reliability analysis to carpal tunnel decompression.Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England · 2024Article
- Seasonal impact on surgical site infections and wound healing disturbance in carpal tunnel surgery: A retrospective cohort study.International wound journal · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionThe demand for elective hand surgery in England is predicted to double by 2030 compared with 2011. With such increase in demand, the UK must seek strategies to reduce costs of treatment while still maintaining standards of care. Carpal tunnel decompression performed in a treatment room rather than in theatre may provide a safe alternative setting. As yet, there are no UK-based studies that identify the risk of infection following surgery performed in a treatment room and there are no studies whatsoever assessing the qualitative outcomes of patients undergoing hand surgery outside a theatre environment. Our aim was to assess whether carpal tunnel decompression performed in the community is safe, in terms of infection risk, and effective. MATERIALS AND
methodsPatient outcome measures were prospectively recorded following carpal tunnel decompression in one single primary care centre performed by one surgeon from 2012 to 2017. Infection following surgery was evaluated for retrospectively.
resultsA total of 460 patients underwent carpal tunnel decompression within the study time period. There were three superficial infections identified, giving an infection rate of 0.65%. There were no deep infections identified. There was a statistically significant improvement in both symptom and functional outcomes following surgery, with results comparable to other studies where surgery was performed in theatre. DISCUSSION: We believe that carpal tunnel decompressions performed in a treatment room is both safe, in terms of infection risk, and effective. Surgeons should consider this location as an alternative setting to the main operating theatre.
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