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CC BY 4.0 · Indian Journal of Neurotrauma
DOI: 10.1055/s-0044-1800858
Original Article

Efficacy of Microscissors DREZotomy in Patients with Posttraumatic Brachial Plexus Injury: A Single-Center Study

Rakshay Kaul
1   Department of Neurosurgery, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
,
Deepak Agrawal 
1   Department of Neurosurgery, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
› Author Affiliations Funding None.
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Abstract

Introduction Brachial plexus injury (BPI) is often associated with a neuropathic pain that usually is managed with analgesics; however, in up to 10% of the patients, it may be associated with a severely disabling chronic pain that does not respond to even maximal medical therapy.

Materials and Methods This retrospective analysis included all the patients undergoing microscissors DREZotomy (MDZ) by a single surgeon (D.A.) for post-BPI brachialgia over 4 years (excluding 1.5 years of the COVID-19 pandemic) between 2018 and 2024 at our institution. Pain was quantified using the visual analog scale (VAS) between 0 and 10.

Results A total of 32 patients underwent MDZ, of whom 3 patients had a redo DREZotomy. There were no complications and 65.7% patients showed an excellent response to pain with a VAS score of less than 3/10, which was statistically significant (p < 0.001). About 25.1% patients showed a good improvement in the VAS score of between 3 and 5.

Conclusion MDZ is a very safe and highly effective technique to relieve the chronic refractory neuralgia in BPI. This technique can be performed with ease even in resource-limited conditions.

Keywords

brachial plexus injury - dorsolateral sulcus - microscissors DREZotomy - pain - visual analog scale


Publication History

Article published online:
12 December 2024

© 2024. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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