Pain physician
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The causes of upper extremity radicular pain or neck pain are varied, often involving disc herniation, spinal stenosis, or spondylosis. Cervical transformaminal epidural steroid injection (C-TFESI) is a common treatment for such pain. However, its efficacy conceivably may depend on needle-tip placement, linking the degree of pain reduction achieved to the pattern of contrast dispersion. ⋯ C-TFESI is an effective treatment for cervical radicular pain that is refractory to conventional conservative remedies. However, therapeutic response to C-TFESI and dispersion pattern of injected contrast failed to correlate in this study.
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Controlled Clinical Trial
The incorporation of platelet-rich plasma into calcium phosphate cement enhances bone regeneration in osteoporosis.
Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) bone cement is widely used for osteoplasty. However, previous studies have demonstrated the adverse effects of PMMA due to its excessive stiffness and heat production. Recently, calcium phosphate cement (CPC) that overcomes those negative effects has been successfully applied in osteoplasty. The potential problem of CPC is markedly less initial stiffness. It leads to progressive, repeated collapse in the treated vertebra before CPC has been replaced by new bone that would provide substantial improvement in compressive strength and stiffness. The activated platelets in platelet-rich plasma (PRP) release a high concentration of growth factors which play an important role in bone healing. ⋯ Incorporating PRP into CPC could accelerate osteoconduction in the augmented vertebra leading to improvement of trabecular bone microarchitecture and BMD in rats.
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Case Reports
Neurolytic transversus abdominal plane block with alcohol for long-term malignancy related pain control.
There have been several case reports in the literature of neurolytic transversus abdominis plane (TAP) blocks being used for malignant abdominal wall pain. However, most used phenol as a neurolytic agent. We found only a single case report by Sakamoto using alcohol for TAP neurolysis. ⋯ Addition of a depo steroid for diagnostic TAP blockade prior to neurolysis did not appear to extend or provide additional analgesia. Based on our observations, TAP neurolysis using alcohol also offers a feasible option for long-term control of malignant abdominal wall pain. Further investigation is needed to determine if alcohol offers any significant advantage compared with phenol.
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Lumbar degenerative spondylolisthesis is a common entity and occurs mainly in elderly patients. The trend in surgery has been to offer decompression with instrumented fusion based on patient-based outcome data and the inherent instability of the condition. ⋯ Endoscopic discectomy is a safe and effective alternative to open back surgery. The one year follow-up data presented here appears to indicate that an ultra-minimally invasive approach to the treatment of lumbar radiculopathy in the setting of spondylolisthesis that has a low complication rate, avoids general anesthesia, and is outpatient might be worth studying in a prospective, longer term way. IRB approval: Meridian Health: IRB Study # 201206071J.