• Colleen M Fitzgerald, Christopher Plastaras, and Trudy Mallinson.
• Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, 345 E. Superior St. #1134,Chicago, IL 60625, USA. cfitzgerald@ric.org
• Pain Med. 2011 Dec 1;12(12):1831-5.

Objective  To report immediate and follow-up pain intensity outcomes of fluoroscopically guided contrast- enhanced pubic symphysis corticosteroid injections for patients with pubic symphysis pain (PSP).Design  Retrospective medical record review.Setting  Outpatient rehabilitation clinic.Subjects  Patients with PSP who underwent pubic symphysis corticosteroid injection (PSI).Intervention  Pubic symphysis corticosteroid injection.Outcome Measures  Pain intensity as measured by numeric rating scale (NRS).Results  Fourteen patients (4 men and 10 women) underwent PSI. Five patients had PSP for less than 6 months, nine had chronic pain (>than 6 months). In 7 of the 10 women the pain was pregnancy related. All patients received other treatments prior to injection. Pubic symphysis tenderness was the most common physical examination finding (13/14 patients). Follow-up pain intensity (PI)-NRS improvement of greater than 2 points was considered clinically significant. At follow-up, improvement was not statistically significant (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, z=1.62 P=0.10). Patients with pain <6 months did not have a greater likelihood of benefit at follow-up compared with those with pain for >6 months (Fisher's exact test, P=0.775).Conclusions  PSIs do not provide clinically or statistically significant relief at follow-up in patients with PSP.Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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