Transient pain and paresthesias in the hand

Abstract

Part I A 34-year-old man who is a plastic surgeon without any past medical history complained of mild medial elbow pain associated with numbness and tingling along the ulnar aspect of the left hand involving the fourth and fifth fingers, symptoms elicited by elbow flexion. These symptoms had been occurring transiently since the patient could remember as a child but the symptoms did not interfere with his daily activities throughout his lifetime until the past several months, in which he noticed that after performing a surgical procedure in which his arm was flexed at the elbow for an extended period of time, the symptoms became more prominent on the left hand. MRI of the left elbow was performed (Fig. 1).