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TUESDAY, Nov. 27, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Computed tomography (CT)-guided pulsed radiofrequency (pRF) is effective for patients with acute or subacute neuroradicular low back pain that is refractory to usual care, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America, held from Nov. 25 to 30 in Chicago.<\/p>\n
Alessandro Napoli, M.D., Ph.D., from the Sapienza University of Rome, and colleagues conducted a single-center prospective trial involving 260 patients with acute or subacute neuroradicular low back pain, refractory to usual care. The patients were randomly assigned to either pRF treatment performed using a 22-20 G needle-electrode with probe tip directed to the symptomatic dorsal root ganglion under CT guidance or CT-guided steroid injection on the same anatomical target (128 and 120 patients, respectively).<\/p>\n
The researchers found that in both groups, the median visual analogue scale scores decreased linearly; during the first year, patients who received radiofrequency obtained significantly greater overall improvement in pain and disability scores. Leg pain relief was faster for patients assigned to pRF; they also reported a faster rate of perceived recovery (hazard ratio, 1.97). After one year of follow-up, the probability of perceived recovery was 95 and 61 percent in the pRF and injection-only groups, respectively.<\/p>\n
“Given our study results, we offer pulsed radiofrequency to patients with herniated disk and sciatic nerve compression whose symptoms do not benefit from conservative therapy,” Napoli said in a statement.<\/p>\n
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