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Frequently asked
questions

Frequently asked questions

Our benefits are:

  1. no skin incision
  2. no dressing or scar after the surgery
  3. immediate return of patients to their daily activities
  4. a specific instrument for two common hand affections: carpal tunnel syndrome and trigger finger.

Surgery using Spirecut Sono-Instruments® is cost-effective, but a high-frequency ultrasound (minimum 15MHz) is necessary with an adapted probe (using a hockey-stick probe is convenient for trigger finger surgery).

Several advantages result in the surgery being cost-effective: 

  1. the rapidity of the operation, 
  2. the surgeon can operate without an assistant or without a set of surgical instruments that need to be re-sterilized
  3. the fast return of the patient to their professional activities.

The procedure is far safer than traditional surgery and, more importantly, far less invasive. A dressing is necessary for a few hours. The patients have almost no visible trace of the surgery and can return to their daily light activities the next day (wash their hands and return to life with no bandages or stitches to be removed).

The procedure should be performed under local anaesthesia.

It is possible to operate simultaneously on both hands for carpal tunnel syndromes, multiple trigger fingers, or a carpal tunnel and a trigger finger. No dressing is required, except on the day of the surgery.

Although there is no skin incision, only a minor puncture, the surgeon cuts the same ligament as for the open/endoscopic surgery. As a result, the operated area will likely cause pain for several weeks (sometimes months) after the surgery. This postoperative symptom is called pillar pain and occurs after all carpal tunnel surgeries. It is related to ligamentous healing, and in some patients, it may preclude heavy manual work for several weeks.

There is no scar resulting from this surgery.

Surgeons prefer local anaesthesia because of decreased morbidity. It can be performed for ambulatory surgery and dynamic perioperative testing (before, during and after the release) of actively movable structures like the flexor tendon(s) in the carpal tunnel and trigger finger/thumb. Moreover, under local anaesthesia, dysesthesia pain during the procedure may alert the clinician to the vicinity of a nerve. 

Avoiding a tourniquet has several advantages:

  1. A better visualization of pulsating arteries under sonography 
  2. Less pain for the patient
  3. Better muscular function for active perioperative mobilization

Risks are extremely limited.

SPIRE is the acronym of Swiss Percutaneous Instruments, allowing Rapid and Efficient Surgery. SPIRE evokes also the similarity of the conical shape of the instruments ; CUT reminds us that the instruments allow the quick and efficient release of thickened pathological tissues like the fingers annual pulleys or the transverse carpal ligament.