# Prevalence, characteristics, and associated factors of abnormal sensory nerve conduction study of sural nerve in patients with traumatic spinal cord injury: a cross-sectional study

## TL;DR

This study found that 24% of spinal cord injury patients had sural nerve neuropathy, with factors like female gender and longer injury duration being linked.

## Contribution

The study identifies the prevalence and risk factors for sural neuropathy in spinal cord injury patients using nerve conduction studies.

## Key findings

- 24% of participants had sural neuropathy, with a 95% confidence interval of 16–34%.
- Female gender, cervical SCI, and a history of ischial pressure injury were independent risk factors for sural neuropathy.
- All sural neuropathies were non-compressive in nature.

## Abstract

a cross-sectional study.

To determine the prevalence and associated factors of abnormal sensory nerve conduction study of sural nerve and to describe the characteristics of sural sensory neuropathy in patients with spinal cord injury (SCI).

Electrodiagnostic unit, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University.

Patients with any level of SCI who had no evidence of lower motor neuron lesion at the sacral level who visited the outpatient department, inpatient department, and urodynamic clinic at Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital between October 2023 and November 2024 were recruited. Nerve conduction studies (NCS) were performed following the American Association of Neuromuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine (AANEM) Guideline. The primary assessment was sural sensory NCS then the prevalence of sural neuropathy was calculated. Demographic and medical parameters were collected and analyzed to demonstrate the associations with sural neuropathy.

Among 95 participants, 23 were diagnosed with sural neuropathy, indicating a prevalence of 0.24 (95%CI: 0.16–0.34). Sural neuropathies observed in all participants were categorized into a type without evidence of compressive neuropathy. The independent associated factors of sural neuropathy were female, time since SCI longer than 10 years, cervical SCI, and history of pressure injury at the ischium.

In people with SCI, the prevalence of sural neuropathy is 24%. Due to limitations in the study design and data collection for detecting neuropathy and risk factors, further longitudinal studies are needed to understand the neurophysiological deterioration following SCI and to confirm these findings.