The Clinical journal of pain
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Multicenter Study Controlled Clinical Trial
Establishing an optimal "cutoff" threshold for diagnostic lumbar facet blocks: a prospective correlational study.
Diagnostic medial branch blocks (MBB) are considered the reference standard for diagnosing facetogenic pain and selecting patients for radiofrequency (RF) denervation. Great controversy exists regarding the ideal cutoff for designating a block as positive. The purpose of this study is to determine the optimal pain relief threshold for selecting patients for RF denervation after diagnostic MBB. ⋯ Employing more stringent selection criteria for lumbar facet RF is likely to result in withholding a beneficial procedure from a substantial number of patients, without improving success rates.