• Lucia Aurini, Battista Borghi, Paul F White, Andrea TOGNù, Barbara Rossi, Greta Fini, Pierfrancesco Fusco, Massimiliano Mosca, and Raffaele Borghi.
• Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy - battista.borghi@ior.it.
• Minerva Anestesiol. 2016 Apr 1; 82 (4): 411-8.

BackgroundCervicobrachial pain (CBP) is often resistant to conventional oral analgesics. We hypothesized that the periradicular injection of meloxicam would produce a significant reduction in their intractable CBP. The secondary objective was to assess the impact of the treatment on functional recovery.Methods48 patients with persistent CBP (>3 months of duration) despite multimodal analgesic therapy received 1-3 periradicular injections of meloxicam, 5-20 mg, at the dermatomal level(s) corresponding to their pain symptoms. Pain level (0=none to 10=severe), rescue analgesics, and functional activity were recorded at baseline and for 90d after the last injection. The injection was repeated if the pain score remained >3 or paresthesia persisted.ResultsThe mean pain score was reduced from a baseline of 8.9 (±1) to 1.7 (±2.2) at 90 days after the last meloxicam injection. Following meloxicam treatment(s), only 13% of the patients required oral analgesic rescue medication. All patients increased their functional activity level.ConclusionsCervical periradicular injection of meloxicam reduced CBP by 81% at 90-day follow-up and also improved functional recovery.

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