Acute carpal tunnel syndrome in a patient taking coumadin.

This is a case report of a 66-year-old female who had been taking coumadin for 4 weeks for deep vein thrombosis. She developed acute carpal tunnel syndrome following minor trauma to her wrist. After conservative therapy failed to relieve her symptoms she underwent release of her carpal tunnel with resolution of her symptoms. While there are many patients taking coumadin, its association with acute carpal tunnel syndrome is quite rare: we were only able to find only one other reported case in the literature. While one is tempted to treat these patients conservatively, operative therapy may be indicated.