Surgery, gynecology & obstetrics
-
The value of patient response to epidural steroid injection as a predictor of surgical outcome was studied. One hundred and eighty-seven patients with clinical signs of root compression underwent lumbar epidural steroid injection. Eighty-five of these patients had been told that an operation on the lumbar spine would be necessary. ⋯ A statistical comparison of these two groups revealed the probability of these occurrences of 0.088. There was no correlation between outcome of open surgical procedures and response to epidural steroids. Epidural steroid injection may be a valuable aid to predicting the outcome of chemonucleolysis.