Partial Thenar Atrophy

Recently, Wartenberg described a clinical entity which he called partial thenar atrophy.¹He reviewed the literature and presented 7 new cases. These cases were characterized by the slow development of partial atrophy, limited to the muscles on the radial side of the thenar eminence and involving only the abductor pollicis brevis and the opponens pollicis muscle. Four of the 7 patients had bilateral atrophy. No other appreciable objective signs were noted, but most patients complained of paresthesias in the fingers of long duration. There was no history of trauma or of significant toxic factors in the cases presented by him. The 3 cases which we report differ from those previously published in that objective sensory and vasomotor disturbances could be demonstrated and that partial thenar atrophy with sensory and vasomotor changes occurred in 1 case after trauma to the median nerve. The second case is presented to show the