Reproducibility in nerve conduction studies and F-wave analysis

Abstract

Objective: Reproducibility testing of nerve conduction studies and F-wave latencies in a group of healthy volunteers.Methods: A total of 32 healthy volunteers underwent sensory and motor nerve conduction studies of the ulnar and tibial nerves, including F-waves, elicited by 32 stimuli, repeated in two different days by the same examiner.Results: the F-wave latencies showed less variability than the other parameters of conduction studies, and, among them, the F-wave mean latency of the tibial nerve has been the one with the higher reproducibility.Conclusions: F-wave latencies were the parameters with best reproducibility, followed by conduction velocities and amplitudes.Significance: Our data showed that the F-wave mean latency is a parameter with a high reliability, considering the reproducibility, for sequential studies. (c) 2008 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.