Sural Nerve Conduction in Healthy Nigerians: Reference Values and Impact of Age

To obtain reference values for sural nerve conduction from healthy Nigerians and to evaluate the relationship between their age and sural nerve conduction parameters.

A total of 200 healthy volunteers were selected, after clinical evaluation to exclude systemic or neuromuscular disorders. Nerve conduction study (NCS) of the sural nerve was conducted on all the healthy volunteers according to a standardized protocol. The data included in the final analysis were Amplitude, Latency, and Nerve conduction velocity (NCV). Ethical approval was obtained for the study.

The reference range for sural nerve velocity, distal latency and base to peak amplitude were 45.67, 64.62, 1.96–4.52 and 4.8–14.1 respectively. There was a weak correlation between age and Sural nerve conduction velocity.

Reference values for sural nerve conduction parameters in the study population are similar to those obtained in the literature. Sural nerve conduction velocity had a weak negative correlation with age.