ORIGINAL ARTICLE Effect of hand volume and other anthropometric measurements on carpal tunnel syndrome Yıldız Arslan 1 • I ˙ smail Bu¨lbu¨l 1 • Levent O ¨ cek 2 • Ufuk S¸ ener 1 • Yas¸ar Zorlu 1 Received: 8 October 2016 / Accepted: 2 January 2017 Ó Springer-Verlag Italia 2017 Abstract Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), majority of cases are considered to be idiopathic, is the most com- monly encountered peripheral neuropathy causing disabil- ity. We asserted that thick and big hands may more prone to idiopathic CTS (ICTS) than others. The study included 165 subjects admitted to our electrophysiology lab with pre-diagnosis of CTS between May 2014 and April 2015. Eighty-five of the subjects were diagnosed as ICTS. The parameters analyzed were: age, gender, occupation, BMI, hand dominance, grade of ICTS, wrist circumference, proximal/distal width of palm, hand/palm length, hand volume and palm length/proximal palm width. Female gender was significantly higher in both groups. The mean age of study group was 44.02 ± 9.11 years, and control group was 41.25 ± 9.94 years. BMI, wrist circumference and hand volume were significantly higher in the study group (p \ 0.05). However, palm length/prox.palm width ratio was higher in the control group (p = 0.00). There were also significant differences among CTS groups in terms of age (p = 0.001). Mean age was higher in severe CTS group. Female gender, older age and high BMI are risk factors for ICTS. Higher hand volume, wrist circum- ference and lower palm length/prox. palm width ratio can also be anthropometric risk factors. Large hand volumes, big and coarse hands are more prone to ICTS. Keywords Idiopathic CTS Á Anthropometric measurements Á Hand volume Introduction Carpal tunnel syndrome, an entrapment of the median nerve at the wrist, is the most commonly encountered peripheral neuropathy causing disability affects approxi- mately 1–2.7% of the general population and frequently women in their fifth or sixth decade [1–4]. Although hand injury and several medical conditions, such as hypothy- roidism and rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, renal failure, thyroid dysfunction, amyloidosis, connective tissue dis- eases and pregnancy are known to be related to this syn- drome, the majority of cases occur without obvious cause and are considered to be idiopathic [1–3, 5–7]. There has been much debate over the last few decades as to whether it is an occupationally caused or personally attributed syn- drome that plays a major role in the development of idio- pathic carpal tunnel syndrome (ICTS) [3, 8, 9]. In most studies anthropometric comparison of patient and control groups indicates that wrist and hand dimen- sions may contribute to ICTS development [10]. An initial observation that most patients with ICTS exhibited ‘squarer’ wrists by Johnson et al. (1983) led to series of anthropomorphic measurements in developing a further diagnostic tool [5]. The shape and dimensions of the wrist have been implicated as predisposing factors producing a narrower carpal tunnel that is more prone to increased pressure [3, 11]. As a result, there is almost a common agreement that a high body mass index (BMI), a squared wrist and a short hand predispose to ICTS [1, 2, 6, 10, 11]. In our study, the dimensions of hand and wrist, BMI and ratios of the measurements were analyzed. Additionally, we asserted and observed that thick and big hands may more prone to ICTS than others. To investigate this theory, hand volumes were also measured with an assembly designed by us. & Yıldız Arslan dryildizarslan@yahoo.com 1 I ˙ zmir Tepecik Education and Research Hospital Neurology Clinic, Yenis¸ehir mah., 35120 Konak/Izmir, Turkey 2 Us¸ak Government Hospital Neurology Clinic, Us¸ak, Turkey 123 Neurol Sci DOI 10.1007/s10072-017-2809-9