• Braz J Anesthesiol · Jan 2017

    Comparative Study

    Comparison of transforaminal and interlaminar epidural steroid injections for the treatment of chronic lumbar pain.

    • Serbülent Gökhan Beyaz.
    • Sakarya University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Sakarya, Turkey. Electronic address: sgbeyaz@gmail.com.
    • Braz J Anesthesiol. 2017 Jan 1; 67 (1): 21-27.

    Study DesignA cross-sectional study.ObjectiveWe compared the 12 month outcomes of fluoroscopically guided transforaminal epidural steroid injections with interlaminar epidural steroid injections for the treatment of chronic lumbar spinal pain. Chronic lower back pain is a multifactorial disorder with many possible etiologies. The lifetime prevalence of spinal pain is reportedly 65-80% in the neck and lower back. Epidural injection of corticosteroids is a commonly used intervention for managing chronic spinal pain.MethodsPatients who did not benefit from previous treatments were included in this study. Injections were performed according to magnetic resonance imaging findings at the nearest level of lumbar pathology; 173 patients received interlaminar epidural steroid injections and 126 patients received transforaminal epidural steroid injections. All of the patients were regularly followed up for 12 months using a verbal numeric rating scale. Magnetic resonance imaging findings, complications, verbal numeric rating scale, and satisfaction scores were recorded.ResultsLumbar disk pathology was the most frequently encountered problem. The interlaminar epidural steroid injections were preferred at the L4-L5 intervertebral level. Verbal numeric rating scale scores significantly decreased during the 12-month period compared to basal scores (p<0.001). Significant differences between the two groups according to verbal numeric rating scale and satisfaction scores were not observed (p>0.05). There were no major complications; however, the interlaminar epidural steroid injections group had 22 (12.7%) minor complications, and the transforaminal epidural steroid injections group had 12 (9.5%) minor complications.ConclusionsThis study showed that interlaminar epidural steroid injections can be as effective as transforaminal epidural steroid injections when performed at the nearest level of lumbar pathology using fluoroscopy in 12-month intervals.Copyright © 2016 Sociedade Brasileira de Anestesiologia. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. All rights reserved.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…

What will the 'Medical Journal of You' look like?

Start your free 21 day trial now.

We guarantee your privacy. Your email address will not be shared.