[Entrapment neuropathies of the posterior interosseous nerve. Clinical findings and surgical treatment (author's transl)].

Radial nerve compression palsies at the elbow and forearm result in a lower radial nerve palsy whose clinical data are generally a hardly diagnosed dissociated radial palsy, or a rough paresis in the range of epicondylalgia. Apparently spontaneous non traumatic compressions are rare. They are essentially due to lipomas, to fibromas, or sometimes to synovial cysts of the elbow. In the course of rheumatoid arthritis, palsies must be isolated. Besides, there is an actual inflammatory canal syndrome of epicondylalgias range, in which radial nerve paresis must be investigated. Traumatic compressions are essentially due to Mongeggia fractures. Radial nerve injury at the elbow is explained by a real radial canal being, in which the nerve is entrapped and where it is especially fixed on a level of its entering the supinator brevis. Any addition of a pathological element in that area (traumatic or not, tumoral or inflammatory) will be able to involve a compression and a nerve stretching, on a level of the arch of Frohse, essentially. Surgical treatment in non traumatic compressions enables to give the etiological diagnosis and to warrant healing by opening the radial canal excising the added pathological element. To achieve a total surgical operation, in epicondylalgias, the surgeons will have to open this radial canal, as well. Traumatic compressions will be explored only in cases of non spontaneous recovery, after treating the osteoarticular injury.