Isolated serratus palsy etiology influences its long-term outcome.

Hypothesis And Background: The cause of isolated serratus palsy is multifactorial, but evaluation of the mechanism of the injury indicates that the lesion to the long thoracic nerve is mechanical in origin in most cases. What is unknown, however, is how etiology influences its long-term outcome. We believed that overuse injuries may recover sooner and better than acute traumatic, infectious, or inflammatory injuries.

Scapular Bracing is Effective in Some Patients but Symptoms Persist in Many Despite Bracing.

Background: A scapular-protecting brace is one option for treating patients with a winging scapula in isolated serratus palsy. However, outcomes after brace treatment have been reported in only a few studies, and to our knowledge, none has results reported at long-term beyond 10 years.

Questions/purpose: We asked: (1) What was the average length of time patients wore the brace? (2) Did scapular winging and ROM improve with brace treatment? (3) Was pain decreased? (4) Did the duration of symptoms before brace treatment influence the outcome?

Patients And Methods: Between 1980 and 1999, we treated 110 patients with a scapular-protecting brace.

The natural course of serratus palsy at 2 to 31 years.

Background: The natural course of isolated serratus palsy is obscure. Residual winging, muscle weakness, and fatigability reportedly occur in half of the patients. Because we believed isolated serratus palsy might have a better natural course than earlier thought, we evaluated our long-term records.