Ultrasonographic evaluation of ulnar innervated muscles in ulnar neuropathy at the elbow
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Quantitative muscle ultrasound (qMUS) provides morphological measurements that can support clinical observation of muscle atrophy and weakness. As the use of qMUS continues to expand, and its potential for broader implementation in neuromuscular evaluation grows, there is a clear need for further validation, particularly in pathologies frequently encountered in electrodiagnostic laboratories, such as cubital tunnel syndrome caused by ulnar neuropathy at the elbow (UNE). OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the validity of qMUS evaluation of ulnar-innervated intrinsic hand muscles. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. PARTICIPANTS: Individuals 18 years or older with chronic UNE and healthy controls (HC). MAIN OUTCOME MEASUREMENT: qMUS parameters (muscle thickness [MT], cross-sectional area [CSA], echogenicity) were measured in the first dorsal interosseous (FDI) and abductor digiti minimi (ADM) and were correlated to corresponding negative peak amplitude of the compound muscle action potential measured (CMAP) and key pinch grip strength. RESULTS: Sixteen adults (8 HC, 8 UNE) participated in the study. Key pinch strength was significantly correlated with FDI MT (r = 0.45, p = .03 [95% CI, 0.05-0.73]) and echogenicity (rho = -0.60, p = .002 [95% CI, -0.82 to -0.24]). FDI MT and echogenicity explained 20% and 36% of pinch strength variance, respectively. Echogenicity was significantly correlated with corresponding CMAP amplitudes (FDI: rho = -0.59, p = .004 [95% CI, -0.81 to -0.21]; ADM: rho = -0.62, p = .002 [95% CI, -0.83 to -0.26]). No statistically significant relationship was found between key pinch strength and FDI CSA (r = 0.35 p = .104 [95% CI, -0.08-0.67]). Furthermore, FDI CMAP was not significantly associated with FDI MT (rho = 0.14, p = .55 [95% CI, -0.32-0.54]) or FDI CSA (rho = 0.041, p = .86 [95% CI, 0.04-0.47]). CONCLUSION: qMUS measures of echogenicity and MT (indicators of muscle fibrosis and size, respectively), correlated with key pinch strength and CMAP amplitudes in the FDI and ADM, in a heterogenous group including UNE and HC limbs. qMUS parameters may provide useful complementary markers and deeper insight into neuromuscular health in entrapment neuropathy.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".