Diagnostic properties of nerve conduction tests in population-based carpal tunnel syndrome

Table 2 Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis comparing the diagnostic accuracy of the nerve conduction tests performed on 153 symptomatic hands of persons with clinically certain carpal tunnel syndrome and 247 asymptomatic control hands*

Nerve conduction test	Area under ROC curve^†	95% confidence interval for difference (between 2 successive tests)
Median nerve distal motor latency	0.75
		-0.02–0.03
Median nerve digit 3-wrist sensory latency	0.76
		-0.04–0.02
Median nerve wrist-palm sensory conduction velocity	0.76
		-0.07 – -0.01
Median-ulnar nerve sensory latency difference	0.80^‡
		0.01–0.08
Median nerve wrist-palm/forearm sensory conduction velocity ratio	0.76

* Two of the 125 asymptomatic control persons declined nerve conduction testing on the left hand and one did not undergo testing on the right hand because of previous laceration. ^† 1 indicates perfect accuracy and 0.5 indicates accuracy no better than chance. ^‡ Significantly different from the other four tests (two-tailed p = 0.004 for all comparisons).

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