Diagnostic Approach to Lower Limb Entrapment Neuropathies: A Narrative Literature Review

Abstract

Entrapment neuropathies of the lower limb are a misunderstood and underdiagnosed group of disorders, characterized by pain and dysesthesia, muscular weakness, and specific provoking movements on physical examination. The most frequent of these syndromes encountered in clinical practice are fibular nerve entrapment, proximal tibial neuropathy, sural nerve neuropathy, deep gluteal syndrome or sciatic nerve entrapment, and lateral femoral cutaneous nerve entrapment, also known as meralgia paresthetica. These are commonly mistaken for lumbar plexopathies, radiculopathies, and musculotendinous diseases, which appear even more frequently and have overlapping clinical presentations. A comprehensive anamnesis, physical examination, and electrodiagnostic studies should help clarify the diagnosis. If the diagnosis is still unclear or a secondary cause of entrapment is suspected, magnetic resonance neurography, MRI, or ultrasonography should be conducted to clarify the etiology, rule out other diseases, and confirm the diagnosis. The aim of this narrative review was to help clinicians gain familiarity with this disease, with an increase in diagnostic confidence, leading to early diagnosis of nerve damage and prevention of muscle atrophy. We reviewed the epidemiology, anatomy, pathophysiology, etiology, clinical presentation, and EDX technique and interpretation of the entrapment neuropathies of the lower limb, using articles published from 1970 to 2022 included in the Pubmed, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, Google Scholar, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Scopus databases.

Keywords

• entrapment neuropathies
• nerve compression syndromes
• peroneal neuropathy
• fibular neuropathies
• tibial neuropathy
• sural nerve