ABSTRACT BACKGROUND

There are two main surgical approaches, simple ulnar nerve decompression at the elbow, and anterior transposition of the nerve in treatment of cubital tunnel syndrome. Both techniques were reported in literature in details with similar reported suc-cess rates. Here, we present a modified simple decompression surgical technique in treatment of cubital tunnel syndrome. METHODS Fifty eight patients diagnosed with cubital tunnel syndrome un-dergoing the presented technique were enrolled. This procedure consisted of ulnar nerve decompression at the elbow and a sup-plementary procedure of inter-muscular septum transverse cut between triceps and brachialis muscle above the elbow. RESULTS Complete sensory recovery was observed in 35 (60.3%) pa-tients, however, mild and occasional sensory symptoms re-mained in 15 (25.9%), and moderate symptoms persisted in 6 (10.3%) patients. In two patients (3.4%), no sensory im-provement was recorded. Post-operatively, muscular hypotro-phy improved completely in 5 out of 12 patients (41.7%). However, in the remaining 7 patients (58.3%) with muscular atrophy, motor recovery never took place. CONCLUSION The presented modified simple decompression technique was shown to be an effective and safe procedure for the treatment of cubital tunnel syndrome without any complications. KEYWORDS: Ulnar nerve; Cubital tunnel syndrome; Simple decompression