The isolated long thoracic nerve palsy is a rare, poorly understood and potentially disabling curiosity, and etiology of the disease is still uncertain. It is believed that most cases are due to trauma or traction injury or to neuralgic amyotrophy. 10 cases of isolated long thoracic nerve palsy were diagnosed in our EMG laboratory during nine year period.
This article presents three cases of traumatic etiologies, three cases of unknown etiologies and four cases of long thoracic nerve injury following surgery. The purpose of this study is to present information pertaining to the clinical features, anatomy, etiologies of the condition and to discuss our experience of 10 cases with literatures. It is considered that a number of these cases were examples of neuralgic amyotrophy and etiologies of postoperative long thoracic nerve palsy must include a coincidental neuralgic amyotrophy.
