Efficacy of Microscissors DREZotomy in Patients with Posttraumatic Brachial Plexus Injury: A Single-Center Study

Abstract Introduction Brachial plexus injury (BPI) is often associated with a neuropathic pain that usually is managed with analgesics; however, in up to 10% of the patients, it may be associated with a severely disabling chronic pain that does not respond to even maximal medical therapy. Materials and Methods This retrospective analysis included all the patients undergoing microscissors DREZotomy (MDZ) by a single surgeon (D.A.) for post-BPI brachialgia over 4 years (excluding 1.5 years of the COVID-19 pandemic) between 2018 and 2024 at our institution. Pain was quantified using the visual analog scale (VAS) between 0 and 10. Results A total of 32 patients underwent MDZ, of whom 3 patients had a redo DREZotomy. There were no complications and 65.7% patients showed an excellent response to pain with a VAS score of less than 3/10, which was statistically significant (p < 0.001). About 25.1% patients showed a good improvement in the VAS score of between 3 and 5. Conclusion MDZ is a very safe and highly effective technique to relieve the chronic refractory neuralgia in BPI. This technique can be performed with ease even in resource-limited conditions.