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14th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand (IFSSH), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT)

17.06. - 21.06.2019, Berlin

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Smoking is associated with ulnar nerve entrapment: a birth cohort study

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  • presenting/speaker Sina Hulkkonen - Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland
  • Juha Auvinen - University of Oulu, Oulun Yliopisto, Finland
  • Jouko Miettunen - University of Oulu, Oulun Yliopisto, Finland
  • Jaro Karppinen - University of Oulu, Oulun Yliopisto, Finland
  • Jorma Ryhänen - Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland

International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand. International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy. 14th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand (IFSSH), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT), 11th Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Societies for Hand Therapy (IFSHT). Berlin, 17.-21.06.2019. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2020. DocIFSSH19-762

doi: 10.3205/19ifssh0796, urn:nbn:de:0183-19ifssh07966

Published: February 6, 2020

© 2020 Hulkkonen et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Outline

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Objectives/Interrogation: Our aim was to study whether smoking is associated with ulnar nerve entrapment.

Methods: The study population consisted of the Northern Finland Birth Cohort with expected date of birth in 1966 (N=8716). History of smoking, pack years, body mass index (BMI) and socio-economic status were recorded at the 31-year follow-up in 1997. Data on hospitalizations due to ulnar nerve entrapment neuropathies was obtained from the Care Register for Health Care. Hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) and population attributable risk percentages (PAR%) were calculated adjusted for gender, BMI and socio-economic status.

Results and Conclusions: A total of 66 patients were diagnosed with ulnar nerve entrapment in the follow-up between 1997 and 2016 (Table 1 [Tab. 1]).

Smoking ten or fewer pack years before the age of 31 years was associated with more than doubled (HR=2.57, 95% CI=1.29-5.15) and smoking over ten pack years before the age of 31 years more than five times higher risk (HR=5.61, 95% CI=2.80-11.23) for ulnar nerve entrapment later in life compared to non-smokers in the adjusted analyses. PAR% for smoking (reference of no smoking) was 53.6 in the adjusted analysis (Table 2 [Tab. 2], Figure 1 [Fig. 1]).

In our study, smoking was associated with an increased risk for ulnar nerve entrapment, accounting for a considerable proportion of increased risk.