Pain physician
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Fluoroscopic cervical interlaminar epidural injections in managing chronic pain of cervical postsurgery syndrome: preliminary results of a randomized, double-blind, active control trial.
Cervical postsurgery syndrome is common with increasing cervical surgical interventions. Cervical spine surgery may fail in a certain proportion of patients with continued pain secondary to pseudoarthrosis, adjacent segment degeneration, inadequate decompression, iatrogenic instability, facet joint arthritis, deformity, and spinal stenosis. Among the various treatments available for managing cervical postsurgery syndrome, epidural steroid injections are one of the most common nonsurgical interventions. However there have not been any systematic evaluations regarding the effectiveness of cervical epidural injections in cervical postsurgery syndrome. ⋯ NCT01071369.
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Effective early antiviral treatments reduce both acute zoster pain and the risk of postherpetic neuralgia. The authors hypothesized that the direct neuraxial administration of acyclovir could provide superior drug application to the spinal neural structures with a higher viral burden and have various advantages over the other routes of drug administration in terms of required doses, side effects, and efficacy. ⋯ There was no evidence of neurological and histopathological abnormalities following intrathecal acyclovir injection.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Interlaminar versus transforaminal epidural steroids for the treatment of subacute lumbar radicular pain: a randomized, blinded, prospective outcome study.
There is uncertainty in the literature over the relative effectiveness of lumbar epidural interlaminar (IL) steroid injection versus transforaminal (TF) steroid injection for lumbar radiculopathy. Most studies to date have been retrospective, or technically focused. ⋯ Results suggest that patients may experience greater subjective relief, at least initially, from TF epidural steroid injections over IL. However, more objective, and likely subacute, therapeutic effects are similar.
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Comparative Study Clinical Trial
An analysis of reasons for failed back surgery syndrome and partial results after different types of surgical lumbar nerve root decompression.
Despite the evident progress in treating vertebral column degenerative diseases, the rate of a so-called "failed back surgery syndrome" associated with pain and disability remains relatively high. However, this term has an imprecise definition and includes several different morbid conditions following spinal surgery, not all of which directly illustrate the efficacy of the applied technology; furthermore, some of them could even be irrelevant. ⋯ The results of our study show that an analysis of the reasons for failures and partial effects of applied interventions for nerve root decompression may help to understand better the efficacy of the interventions and could be helpful in improving surgical strategies, otherwise the validity of the conclusion could be limited because not all sources of residual pain illustrate the applied technology efficacy. In the majority of cases, the cause of the residual or recurrent pain can be identified, and this may open new possibilities to improve the condition of patients presenting with failed back surgery syndrome.