03
September
2022
|
22:04 PM
America/New_York

‘This is really weird. Who wakes up and their hand doesn’t work?’

The Washington Post highlights the expertise of Scott W. Wolfe, MD, chief emeritus of the Hand and Upper Extremity Service at HSS, who was consulted on a case for a Parsonage-Turner syndrome (PTS) patient who was undergoing a nerve transfer surgery at Johns Hopkins and needed a microneurolysis after surgeons encountered a rare deformity.

During the nerve transfer surgery, the Johns Hopkins surgeons discovered what appeared to be a severed nerve at the site of the patient’s first surgery. Closer examination revealed a possible hourglass-like constriction, a rare deformity sometimes seen in PTS patients, caused by a band that tightly encircles the nerve making it resemble an hourglass.

The Hopkins surgeons had not encountered this before, so they reached out to Dr. Wolfe, who co-authored a 2021 study describing successful surgery performed on 11 PTS patients with hourglass constrictions. The procedure, known as microneurolysis, involves decompressing the nerve by releasing the band of tissue and painstakingly repairing the nerve damage.

After being consulted via video call from the operating room, Dr. Wolfe recommended microneurolysis and wrapping the damaged nerve in connective tissue harvested from Brenner's wrist to protect it.

Read the full article at Washingtonpost.com. A subscription is required to access.