Between 1962 and 1986, eighty-one of the 1351 admissions of patients who
had hemophilia to the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre were for peripheral nerve
lesions. Eighty-eight such lesions were identified in fifty-four patients,
and thirty-nine of these patients (sixty-one lesions) had adequate
follow-up (mean, 8.4 years; range, four months to eighteen years). The
femoral nerve was most commonly involved, but involvement of other
peripheral nerves also occurred. In thirty (49 per cent) of the sixty-one
lesions, the nerve had full motor and sensory recovery; in twenty-one (34
per cent), a residual sensory deficit; and in ten (16 per cent), both a
persistent motor and sensory deficit. Patients who had antibodies to factor
VIII were significantly less likely to recover full motor or sensory
function than were those who did not have such antibodies, and the time to
full motor recovery in these patients was significantly longer.