Cemal KAHRAMAN, Yiğit AKÇALI, Fahri OĞUZKAYA, Kutay TAŞDEMİR, Mehmed BİLGİN, Atalay ŞAHİN
Thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS) is a complex of the
symptoms which are related with neurovascular
compression in the thoracic outlet area. The manage
ment of the TOS are achieved by conservative or non-
operative methods such as physiotherapy and/or
surgical interventions. We reviwed the patients who
were managed surgically because of TOS. in our
department, we managed surgically twenty-eight
patients with TOS in the last ten years. The causes of
the compression were the soft tissue structures in the
cases (37.7 %), and the osseous structures in 18 cases
(64.3 %), The compression of the brachial plexus was
noted in the rate of 85.7 percent. The vascular
complications of the TOS were arterial thrombosis or
thromboembolism, venous thrombosis, and Ray-
naud s phenomenon (14.3 %). Paresthesia (100 %)
and pain (67.8 %) were the clinic manifestations
which were noted frequently. The supraclavicular
approach was used in the involvement of the upper
brachial plexus C5-7 (57 %), and the transaxillary one
was used in the lesions of lower brachial plexus (i.e,
C8-11) or in the compression of the osseous
structures (42.9 %). Postoperative complications were
incisional hematoma (3.5 %), transient power loss
(3.5 %) and causalgia (3.5 %). The postoperative
results were good in 32.1 %, fair in 57.2 % and poor
10.7 %, Recurrent TOS developed in two cases (7 %),
and was noted pseudorecurrence in one case. The
management of the TOS is surgical one in the
selected cases, and improvement is over the rate of
80 %.