Ultrasound Guided Spine Injections: Advancement Over Fluoroscopic Guidance?

Ultrasound-guided fluoroscopic-verified trans-foraminal lumbar dorsal root ganglion pulsed radiofrequency modulation for radicular pain relief: clinical and cadaveric evaluation of the technique

Background

Ultrasound-guided lumbar pain interventions were thought to be difficult; the high acoustic impedance of bone hides the underling structures and needle path. Reviewing the sonoanatomy of the lumbar region using different planes and angles made better sonographic guidance for spine injections. The aim of this prospective study is to assess the accuracy and safety of ultrasound (US)-guided lumbar trans-foraminal pulsed radiofrequency of the dorsal root ganglion confirmed by fluoroscopic imaging in management of chronic radicular pain.

Results

Thirty-two patients, with 34 lumbar interventions, were included in the study. Thirty-one interventions out of 34 were performed successfully with overall accuracy of 91.18% and with minimal complications. The successful first trial placement of the cannula was calculated in 44.1% of interventions; multiple trials were needed in 47.1% while incorrect level was encountered in 8.8%. Visual analogue scale of pain and Oswestry Disability Index decreased significantly after intervention up to 3 months compared to the pre-intervention value. The analgesic consumption was reduced by mean of 73.44 ± 31.07% 1 month after intervention.

Conclusions

US-guided fluoroscopic-verified trans-foraminal PR of lumbar DRG is accurate, safe, and effective for CRP.

Ultrasound-Guided Lumbar Spine Injection for Axial and Radicular Pain: A Single Institution Early Experience

STUDY DESIGN

Clinical audit via retrospective review of a database.

PURPOSE

To report an early experience using ultrasound-guided lumbar spinal injection for axial and radicular pain in an Asian multiethnic cohort.

OVERVIEW OF LITERATURE

Ultrasound-guided spine injection therapy is a comparatively new technique in the management of axial and radicular pain from degenerative lumbar spinal conditions, which may be a reasonable alternative to conventional fluoroscopic or computed tomography-guided injection.

METHODS

A retrospective review was conducted, involving all patients who underwent ultrasound-guided lumbar spine injection therapy at a single institution over 1 year. Patients were evaluated by two interventionists, who then performed standardized ultrasound-guided lumbar facet joint and pararadicular spinal injections.

RESULTS

There were 42 patients treated at our Sports Medicine Centre; with 27 patients (64.3%) receiving facet joint injections and 18 patients (42.9%) receiving nerve root injections. The majority (90.5%) of patients experienced an improvement of >30% in pain intensity at 3 months post-injection, using the Numerical Rating Scale pain score (p<0.001); with 40 patients (95.2%) reporting a reduction in Oswestry Disability Index score (p<0.001). No complications were reported.

CONCLUSIONS

Our initial experience confirms the safety, feasibility, and effectiveness of ultrasound-guided lumbar spinal injection for the treatment of axial and radicular pain in an Asian multiethnic cohort.

Ultrasound- versus fluoroscopy-guided injections in the lower back for the management of pain: a systematic review

PURPOSE

Ultrasound-guided spinal injections are less common than fluoroscopy-guided injections. Although unable to penetrate bones, ultrasound guidance has a number of advantages including convenience and reduced exposure to ionizing radiation. However, it is not known how ultrasound-guided injections compare to fluoroscopy-guided injections in the management of lower back pain. Our objective is to systematically review the literature comparing ultrasound-guided injections to fluoroscopy-guided injections for the management of lower back pain.

METHODS

Medline, Cochrane CENTRAL Register of Controlled Trials, Embase, and NHSEED were searched from 2007 to September 26, 2017. Inclusion criteria included (1) randomized controlled trial design, (2) compared ultrasound-guided and fluoroscopy-guided injections for lower back pain, (3) dose and volume of medications injected were identical between trial arms, and (4) reported original data.

RESULTS

One hundred one unique records were identified, and 21 studies were considered for full-text inclusion. Nine studies formed the final data set. Studies comparing ultrasound- and fluoroscopy-guided injections for lower back pain management reported no difference in pain relief, procedure time, number of needle passes, changes in disability indices, complications or adverse events, post-procedure opioid consumption, or patient satisfaction.

CONCLUSION

Fluoroscopic guidance of injections for the management of lower back pain is similar in efficacy to ultrasound guidance. The exact role of ultrasound guidance needs to be further studied, especially for nerve root injections, where safety is the major concern.

KEY POINTS

• There were no differences in pain relief, procedure time, number of needle passes, changes in disability indices, complications or adverse events, post-procedure opioid consumption, or patient satisfaction between ultrasound- and fluoroscopy-guided injections for the management of lower back pain. • Given the lack of evidence to demonstrate superior efficacy and the added harms with fluoroscopic guidance, ultrasound guidance may be the preferred method of guidance for injections to manage lower back pain in appropriate patients. Further study is required to understand the exact role of ultrasound in image-guided injections.

Automatic Localization of the Needle Target for Ultrasound-Guided Epidural Injections

Accurate identification of the needle target is crucial for effective epidural anesthesia. Currently, epidural needle placement is administered by a manual technique, relying on the sense of feel, which has a significant failure rate. Moreover, misleading the needle may lead to inadequate anesthesia, post dural puncture headaches, and other potential complications. Ultrasound offers guidance to the physician for identification of the needle target, but accurate interpretation and localization remain challenges. A hybrid machine learning system is proposed to automatically localize the needle target for epidural needle placement in ultrasound images of the spine. In particular, a deep network architecture along with a feature augmentation technique is proposed for automatic identification of the anatomical landmarks of the epidural space in ultrasound images. Experimental results of the target localization on planes of 3-D as well as 2-D images have been compared against an expert sonographer. When compared with the expert annotations, the average lateral and vertical errors on the planes of 3-D test data were 1 and 0.4 mm, respectively. On 2-D test data set, an average lateral error of 1.7 mm and vertical error of 0.8 mm were acquired.

Ultrasound-Guided Spine Anesthesia: Feasibility Study of a Guidance System

Spinal needle injections are guided by fluoroscopy or palpation, resulting in radiation exposure and/or multiple needle re-insertions. Consequently, guiding these procedures with live ultrasound has become more popular, but images are still challenging to interpret. We introduce a guidance system based on augmentation of ultrasound images with a patient-specific 3-D surface model of the lumbar spine. We assessed the feasibility of the system in a study on 12 patients. The system could accurately provide augmentations of the epidural space and the facet joint for all subjects. Following conventional, fluoroscopy-guided needle placement, augmentation accuracy was determined according to the electromagnetically tracked final position of the needle. In 9 of 12 cases, the accuracy was considered sufficient for successfully delivering anesthesia. The unsuccessful cases can be attributed to errors in the electromagnetic tracking reference, which can be avoided by a setup reducing the influence of the metal C-arm.

Herpetic Brachial Plexopathy: Application of Brachial Plexus Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Ultrasound-Guided Corticosteroid Injection

Herpes zoster, commonly known as shingles, is an infectious viral disease characterized by painful, unilateral skin blisters occurring in specific sensory dermatomes. Motor paresis is reported in 0.5% to 5% of patients. Although the mechanism of zoster paresis is still unclear, the virus can spread from the dorsal root ganglia to the anterior horn cell or anterior spinal nerve roots. It rarely involves the brachial plexus. We report a case of brachial plexitis following herpes zoster infection in which pathological lesions were diagnosed using brachial plexus magnetic resonance imaging and treated with ultrasound-guided perineural corticosteroid injection.