Steroid injections added to the usual treatment of lumbar radicular syndrome: a pragmatic randomized controlled trial in general practice

BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders

Klaas Groenier¹  Marten van Wijhe¹  Jan C Winters¹  Antje Spijker-Huiges¹ 

[1] Department of General Practice, University Medical Centre Groningen, Postbus 196, FA20, 9700 AD Groningen, The Netherlands

关键词: Epidural injections;    Pain treatment;    General practice;    Sciatica;    Lumbosacral radicular syndrome;   

Others  :  1118672
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2474-15-341

 received in 2014-02-03, accepted in 2014-08-13,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Lumbosacral radicular syndrome (LRS) is a self-limiting, benign, painful and impairing condition caused by lumbar disc herniation and inflammatory processes around the nerve root. Segmental epidural steroid injections (SESIs) are helpful to reduce radicular pain on a short-term basis. It is unknown whether SESIs are an effective addition to usual pain treatment of LRS in general practice. In our study, we assessed the effectiveness of SESIs on pain and disability as an addition to usual care for acute LRS in general practice.

Methods

A pragmatic, single-blinded, randomized controlled trial in Dutch general practice was conducted. Circumstances of daily practice were closely followed. Care as usual (CAU) was compared to care as usual combined with an additional SESI in 63 patients in the acute phase of LRS. To detect a minimal clinically important difference of 1.2 points on a numerical rating scale for back pain and a common within-group standard deviation of 1.7 with a two-tailed alpha of 0.05 and a power of 0.80, we needed 33 subjects in each group. Statistical analysis was carried out using mixed models.

Results

A small significant effect in favour of the intervention, corrected for age, sex and baseline values, was found for back pain, impairment and Roland-Morris disability score. The differences, though statistically significant, were too small to be considered clinically relevant. Patients from the intervention group were significantly more satisfied with the received treatment than patients from the control group.

Conclusion

We found a small, statistically significant, but not clinically relevant positive effect of SESIs on back pain, impairment and disability in acute LRS. We do not recommend implementing SESIs as an additional regular treatment option in general practice.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Spijker-Huiges et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

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