Radial Nerve Injury after Venipuncture.

Abstract

Venipuncture is the most commonly performed invasive procedure in hospitals daily.[1] Nerves in the antecubital fossa classically lie on a plane just beneath and in close proximity to the veins, making them susceptible to injury during phlebotomy.[1] Cadaveric studies have demonstrated a great deal of variability in the nerves of the antecubital fossa in relationship to veins, suggesting that even a nontraumatic, straightforward venipuncture can directly damage a cutaneous nerve.[2] Despite this, there remains a relative paucity in the literature reporting cases of peripheral nerve injury secondary to venipuncture. Of the few reported cases, an even smaller percentage of these have been validated with electrodiagnostic evidence of injury. The majority of these studies report injury to the lateral antebrachial cutaneous nerve. To the best of our knowledge, there has been only one reported case in current literature of radial nerve injury.