Participation of Arterial Ischemia in Positional-Related Symptoms among Patients Referred for Thoracic Outlet Syndrome

Abstract

Objectives: The coexistence of arterial compression with neurogenic thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS) is associated with a better post-surgical outcome. Forearm transcutaneous oxygen pressure (TcpO2) using the minimal decrease from rest of oxygen pressure (DROPmin) can provide an objective estimation of forearm ischemia in TOS. We hypothesized that a linear relationship exists between the prevalence of symptoms (PREVs) and DROPmin during 90° abduction external rotation (AER) provocative maneuvers. Thereafter, we aimed to estimate the proportion of TOS for which arterial participation is present. Methods: Starting in 2019, we simultaneously recorded forearm TcpO2 recordings (PF6000 Perimed®) and the presence/absence of ipsilateral symptoms during two consecutive 30 s AER maneuvers for all patients with suspected TOS. We retrospectively analyzed the relationship between the prevalence of symptoms and DROPmin results. We estimated the number of cases where ischemia likely played a role in the symptoms, assuming that the relationship should start from zero in the absence of ischemia and increase linearly to a plateau of 100% for the most severe ischemia. Results: We obtained 2560 TcpO2 results in 646 subjects (69% females). The correlation between PREVs and DROPmin was 0.443 (p < 0.001). From these results, we estimated the arterial participation in TOS symptoms to be 22.2% of our 1669 symptomatic upper limbs. Conclusions: TcpO2 appears to be an interesting tool to argue for an arterial role in symptoms in TOS. Arterial participation is frequent in TOS. Whether DROPmin could predict treatment outcomes better than the sole presence of compression is an interesting direction for the future.