Response to Khan et al: Long-Term Outcomes of Non-surgical versus Surgical Treatment for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: An Observational Cohort Study.

Abstract

The letter to the editor discusses the comparative fairness between surgical and non-surgical treatments for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS), highlighted in Khan et al.'s study. The authors argue that surgical treatments, being based on a unified pathophysiology of decompression, are not comparable to the diverse non-surgical treatments like splinting and local corticosteroid injections, which only some have substantial evidence backing their effectiveness. They reference their own study showing equal effectiveness of surgery and corticosteroid injections in the short term, but a long-term advantage for surgery, despite a significant number of non-surgical cases not requiring further treatment.