Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is considered as the most common entrapment neuropathy. Median nerve release by surgery is a manual therapy intervention used for treating CTS.

The aim of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of surgical decompression with respect to local steroid injection in the treatment of idiopathic.

In this study, 100 patients with mild and moderate carpal tunnel syndrome were assigned to two equal groups. In one group, patients received a single local injection of triamcinolone acetonide and in the other one, open carpal tunnel release was used. A number of variables including pain (based on Visual Analogue Scale), symptom severity and functional status (based on Bostone/ Levine symptom severity and functional status scale) were assessed at the baseline and after a 6-month follow-up. Analysis was carried by intention to treat.

the severity of symptoms in the surgery and injection groups was 2.51 and 2.61 respectively. However, in the follow-up, the severity of symptoms in the surgery group (1.77) was significantly lower than the injection group (2.62) (p