The 1232 cases of traumatic peripheral Neuropathy was studied retrospectively and the result was discussed with other previous studies.

The subjects of this study were selected among those who were diagnosed as peripheral neuropathy in the EMG laboratory of Seoul National University Hospital from Jan. 1979 to dec. 1987. Facial neuropathy and radiculopathy were excluded in this study.

The results were as followed:

1) The total 1232 cases were composed of 1028 males(83.4%) and 204 females(16.4%) with the male to female ratio of about 5 to 1.

By age distribution, the largest composition, 30%(406 cases) of total cases falled in 3rd decade, followed by 21.2% of 4th decade, 12.9% of 1st decade and 12.7% of 5th decade.

2) The four main causes of trauma were traffic accidents(29%), glass & knife injury(20.7%), iatrogenic causes(13.3%), and fall-downs(9.9%).

The four types of the traffic accident were pedestrian injury(58.5%), autobicycle accident(23%), car-collison accident(15.7%) and bicycle accident.

3) The recent trends of causes of trauma was that the traffic accident, iatrogenic causes and fall downs had shown increasing tendency with 10%, 25% and 10% respectively, but the glass and knife injury had shown decreasing tendency with 18.7%.

4) The nerves most frequently damaged was ulnar nerve followed by median nerve, brachial plexus and peroneal nerve.

5) The percentage of injured nerve showed increasing tendency in peroneal nerve(23%) brachial plexus(16.3%) sciatic nerve(12.7%) and ulnar nerve(8.3%): decreasing tendency in radial nerve(19.5%) and median nerve(6.5%)

6) The degree of peripheral nerve injury was more severe in glass & knife injury and Iatrogenic causes associated with operations.

The degree of the injury due to autobicycle was less severe than injury due to car-collison injury. The brachial plexus was injured mostly due to autobicycle accident.

Keywords :Peripheral nerve injury, Trauma, Cause