Therapeutic efficacy of eriradicular nerve root infiltration in the treatment of sciatica

Abstract EN

Objective: To evaluate the clinical effectiveness of periradicular nerve root infiltration of corticosteroids for lumbar radicular pain.

Methods: This study was conducted in King Hussein Medical Center between June 2003 and June 2005.

A total of 28 patients with sciatica were evaluated retrospectively.

All patients were investigated by MRI (20 patients had disc herniations and 8 patients had foraminal stenosis) and were treated with periradicular nerve root infiltration of corticosteroids.

The periradicular therapy was indicated in patients with MRI documented disc herniations or foraminal stenosis with at least three months of persistent lumbar radicular pain that did not respond to physical therapy or other conservative therapy.

Results: After three months of follow up, 100% pain reduction was reported in 10 patients (35.7%) according to visual analogue scale, nine patients (32.1%) reported 90% pain reduction, five patients (17.9%) said that their pain decreased by 70-80%, and four patients (14.3%) reported pain reduction less than 60%.

Two patients required repeated injections since periradicular nerve root infiltration did not have accepted pain relief after one week post injection.

Conclusion: Periradicular nerve root infiltration is effective and safe tool in the management of lumbar radicular pain and may deserve to be used as part of the conservative management of lumbar radicular pain before resorting to more invasive methods.