Surgical Management of Chronic Exertional Compartment Syndrome of the Lower Extremity: Outcome Analysis and Return to Sport

Objective: To evaluate patient-reported outcomes and return to sport after open fasciotomy for lower extremity chronic exertional compartment syndrome (CECS). Design: Retrospective case series. Setting: Foot and ankle specialty service at a large multisite academic medical center. Patients: All patients undergoing lower extremity fasciotomy for CECS from 2009 to 2017 by one surgeon were eligible. Patients that underwent a fasciotomy for trauma, infection, or an acute pathologic process were excluded. Fifty-nine patients that underwent 63 procedures were included. The average age was 26.6 years, and 35 (59%) patients were women. Thirty-seven patients underwent simultaneous bilateral fasciotomies, 4 had staged bilateral fasciotomies, and 18 underwent unilateral fasciotomy. Four-compartment fasciotomy was performed 15 times. Interventions: Retrospective email/telephone follow-up. Main Outcome Measures: Return to sports questionnaire, the Foot and Ankle Ability Measure–Sports subscale, and visual analog scale for pain. Results: At a mean follow-up of 58.8 months, significant postoperative improvement was seen in patient-reported outcome scores compared with preoperative scores (P
Source: Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine - Category: Sports Medicine Tags: Original Research Source Type: research