The Effect and Safety of Steroid Injection in Lumbar Spinal Stenosis: With or Without Local Anesthetics

Factfinders for patient safety: Epidural steroid injection in patients with lumbar spinal stenosis

This FactFinder presents a brief summary of the evidence suggesting that epidural steroid injections can be safely performed even in the setting of severe, multilevel lumbar spinal stenosis.

A comparison between effectiveness of gluteal trigger point and epidural steroid injection in lumbosacral canal stenosis patients: a randomized clinical trial

BACKGROUND

Lumbosacral Spinal Stenosis (LSS) is a degenerative spine disease and a major cause of pain and disability, especially in geriatrics. Primary symptom control in patients with LSS includes conservative treatment and non-surgical methods. In this study, we aimed to compare the effect of steroid injection via epidural and gluteal trigger point techniques.

METHODS

Patients aged 40-75 years old who had pain and other clinical signs of spinal stenosis in the last 6 months were included in our study and divided into two groups of gluteal trigger point (TP) or epidural steroid injection (ESI). The patients were evaluated based on the visual analog scale (VAS), Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RDQ), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), and the Quebec back pain disability scales during their pre-injection period and 2 weeks after follow-ups till 8 weeks. A P value of less than 0.05 was considered significant.

RESULTS

A total of 44 patients were included in our study. The TP group had a significant decrease in comparison with their follow-ups; however, in the epidural group, the significant decrease was only observed compared to the pre-injection period and the scores did not have any significant decreases after the second week regarding the ODI, RQM, and VAS scales. The TP group demonstrated significantly higher scores of decreases of ODI and Quebec score compared to the epidural group at weeks 4 and 8. Regarding RQM, the TP groups demonstrated significantly higher scores of decreases compared to the epidural group at weeks 2, 4 and 8. (p < 0.001 p = 0.008, and p < 0.001, respectively).

CONCLUSION

Both epidural and TP steroid injection significantly reduced the patients' pain and improved their QoL and function; however, more satisfactory results were observed in the TP group during the patients' follow-ups, while the epidural group demonstrated only statistically significant improvement during the short-term follow-up.

Safety of Epidural Hyaluronic Acid Injections in Managing the Symptoms of Lumbar Foraminal Stenosis: A Prospective Preliminary Study

Lumbar foraminal stenosis (LFS) of degenerative origin is a common reason for distorted neurodynamics of nerve roots, causing radicular pain that is difficult to resolve with conservative treatments. A hyaluronic acid (HA), providing a sliding layer in the mechanical interface of a nerve root in a narrowed lateral recess, could potentially improve its neurodynamics and the trophic, leading to radicular pain reduction and improvement of function. This study aimed to assess the usefulness of ultrasound-guided HA epidural injections combined with neuromobilization in the conservative treatment of LFS. A group of 10 consecutively admitted patients with MRI-confirmed LFS and reduced straight leg raise (SLR) test results were qualified for a single HA epidural injection along with self-performed neuromobilization. Three measurement tools were used for primary outcomes: the numeric rating scale (NRS) for pain intensity, the Oswestry disability index (ODI) and the Roland-Morris questionnaire (RMQ) for disability level, and the angle of pain-free elevation in the SLR test as a functional assessment. The treatment was accomplished in all patients (100%). Overall, 60% of the patients completed all follow-up visits. There were no statistically significant differences regarding the results of the NRS, ODI, or RMQ; however, a statistically significant increase in the results of the SLR test was noted (p = 0.015). Three patients reported a flare-up of the symptoms shortly after injection but without neurological deficits. In conclusion, an epidural HA injection combined with a self-administered exercise program is a promising method and might be a beneficial way to enhance the neurodynamics of nerve roots in LFS and offer an option for steroid treatment. However, this method of epidural HA administration in LFS should be verified in further studies to confirm its efficiency and safety.

Differentiating Lumbar Spinal Etiology from Peripheral Plexopathies

Clinicians have managed and treated lower back pain since the earliest days of practice. Historically, lower back pain and its accompanying symptoms of radiating leg pain and muscle weakness have been recognized to be due to any of the various lumbar spine pathologies that lead to the compression of the lumbar nerves at the root, the most common of which is the radiculopathy known as sciatica. More recently, however, with the increased rise in chronic diseases, the importance of differentially diagnosing a similarly presenting pathology, known as lumbosacral plexopathy, cannot be understated. Given the similar clinical presentation of lumbar spine pathologies and lumbosacral plexopathies, it can be difficult to differentiate these two diagnoses in the clinical setting. Resultingly, the inappropriate diagnosis of either pathology can result in ineffective clinical management. Thus, this review aims to aid in the clinical differentiation between lumbar spine pathology and lumbosacral plexopathy. Specifically, this paper delves into spine and plexus anatomy, delineates the clinical assessment of both pathologies, and highlights powerful diagnostic tools in the hopes of bolstering appropriate diagnosis and treatment. Lastly, this review will describe emerging treatment options for both pathologies in the preclinical and clinical realms, with a special emphasis on regenerative nerve therapies.

Non-operative treatment for lumbar spinal stenosis with neurogenic claudication: an updated systematic review

OBJECTIVES

Neurogenic claudication due to lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) is a growing health problem in older adults. We updated our previous Cochrane review (2013) to determine the effectiveness of non-operative treatment of LSS with neurogenic claudication.

DESIGN

A systematic review.

DATA SOURCES

CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and Index to Chiropractic Literature databases were searched and updated up to 22 July 2020.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

We only included randomised controlled trials published in English where at least one arm provided data on non-operative treatment and included participants diagnosed with neurogenic claudication with imaging confirmed LSS.

DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS

Two independent reviewers extracted data and assessed risk of bias using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool 1. Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation was used for evidence synthesis.

RESULTS

Of 15 200 citations screened, 156 were assessed and 23 new trials were identified. There is moderate-quality evidence from three trials that: Manual therapy and exercise provides superior and clinically important short-term improvement in symptoms and function compared with medical care or community-based group exercise; manual therapy, education and exercise delivered using a cognitive-behavioural approach demonstrates superior and clinically important improvements in walking distance in the immediate to long term compared with self-directed home exercises and glucocorticoid plus lidocaine injection is more effective than lidocaine alone in improving statistical, but not clinically important improvements in pain and function in the short term. The remaining 20 new trials demonstrated low-quality or very low-quality evidence for all comparisons and outcomes, like the findings of our original review.

CONCLUSIONS

There is moderate-quality evidence that a multimodal approach which includes manual therapy and exercise, with or without education, is an effective treatment and that epidural steroids are not effective for the management of LSS with neurogenic claudication. All other non-operative interventions provided insufficient quality evidence to make conclusions on their effectiveness.

PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER

CRD42020191860.

Assessing the impact of adding bupivacaine on immediate and delayed post-procedure pain scores in interlaminar epidural steroid injections

OBJECTIVE

A local anesthetic is frequently administered as part of a lumbar epidural steroid injection (LESI); however, there is a rare potential for this to result in transient paralysis if administered incorrectly. The purpose of this retrospective study is to determine if the addition of bupivacaine significantly improves patient-reported pain scores.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This retrospective review includes patients undergoing LESI over an approximately 1 year time span. Pre-procedure, immediate post-procedure, and 1-week integer scaled pain scores were recorded. Ordinal regression was used to compare the distributions of the aggregated ordinal pain score categories between bupivacaine- and non-bupivacaine-injected patients.

RESULTS

Two hundred fifty-eight patients met the inclusion criteria (126F:132 M, mean age 64.7 years) with 164 receiving bupivacaine and steroids and 94 receiving steroids alone. The relative frequency distributions for pre-injection pain did not differ between the bupivacaine patients and the non-bupivacaine patients (p = 0.114). Similarly, the relative frequency distributions for immediate and 1-week post-procedure pain did not differ between the bupivacaine patients and the non-bupivacaine patients (p = 0.293 at immediate time point and p = 0.306 at 1-week time point). Odds ratios comparing pain severity change between the bupivacaine and non-bupivacaine patients also were not significantly different at either the immediate post-procedure (p = 0.769) or 1-week (p = 0.203) time points.

CONCLUSION

The lack of a significant downward shift in the bupivacaine patients' post-procedure pain scores compared to the non-bupivacaine patients' post-procedure pain scores raises doubts about bupivacaine's utility as a standard component of a lumbar epidural injection.

Intralesional corticosteroid injections are less painful without local anesthetic: a double-blind, randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND

Corticosteroid injections are a commonly used treatment for dermatologic pathologies. Although the injectable is often prepared with a local anesthetic, we hypothesize that patients receiving an injection with anesthetic will experience no decrease in pain at the time of injection.

METHODS

Patients requiring a corticosteroid injection were prospectively randomized into two cohorts to receive a corticosteroid (triamcinolone acetonide) combined with either lidocaine with epinephrine 1:100 000 (anesthetic) or bacteriostatic normal saline. Both patient and clinician were blinded to the treatment arm. The primary outcome was pain associated with the injection measured using a Visual Analog Scale (VAS) immediately following the injection.

RESULTS

Thirty-one patients were enrolled with 18 in the saline group and 13 in the lidocaine with epinephrine group. Pain scores were significantly higher for injections containing lidocaine with epinephrine versus saline (VAS 5.0 vs 2.0, p = .0056).

CONCLUSIONS

For various dermatologic pathologies, corticosteroid injections are effective and have relatively little associated pain. Counterintuitively, we found that there is more injection-associated pain when lidocaine with epinephrine is included with the corticosteroid. Therefore, clinicians should omit this anesthetic or dilute corticosteroids with normal saline, rather than with lidocaine and epinephrine. This will minimize injection pain as well as decrease the risk of pharmacologic adverse reactions from an unnecessary additional medication. Due to the small sample size, additional research may be necessary for generalization to other indications. Clinicaltrials.gov listing: NCT03630198.

Short-Term Efficacy of Epidural Injection of Triamcinolone Through Translaminar Approach for the Treatment of Lumbar Canal Stenosis

Background

Epidural steroid injection is a non-operative minimally invasive procedure for pain relief in spinal canal stenosis. However, there is no significant consensus regarding its efficacy.

Objectives

In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of translaminar injection of triamcinolone in lumbar canal stenosis.

Methods

In a retrospective study, we included 111 patients with MRI-confirmed spinal canal stenosis who were irresponsive to 12 weeks of conservative treatment and underwent epidural injection of triamcinolone through the translaminar approach. Outcome measures were routinely checked before the intervention and four weeks after the intervention, which included the Visual Analog scale (VAS) for low back pain, VAS for lower-limb pain, and Oswestry Disability index (ODI).

Results

The study population included 32 (28.8%) males and 79 (71.2%) females with the mean age of 61 ± 13.4 years. The mean ODI, VAS for low back pain, and VAS for lower-limb pain significantly improved at the final evaluation session (P < 0.001, P = 0.001, and P < 0.001, respectively). The levels of improvement in ODI, VAS for low back pain, and VAS for lower-limb pain were considerably more in patients with single-level involvement (P < 0.001, P = 0.04, and P < 0.001, respectively). Improvement of lower-limb VAS was negatively correlated with age (r = -0.400, P < 0.001) and BMI (r = -0.525, P < 0.001). The ODI improvement was also negatively correlated with BMI (r = -0.569, P < 0.001).

Conclusions

Epidural injection of triamcinolone through the translaminar approach could be regarded as an efficacious method for the alleviation of pain and disability in patients with spinal canal stenosis.

Interventional Approaches to Low Back Pain

Chronic low back pain (LBP) places a tremendous economic burden on society due to both direct and indirect costs. Health care costs for adults with chronic LBP have steadily increased over the past 20 years, coinciding with a large increase in the utilization of spinal injections, surgical interventions, opioid medications, and physical therapy. The treatment of LBP is best approached by a multimodal and even multidisciplinary approach with a combination of physical rehabilitation, pharmacologic management, psychological intervention, spinal injections, and surgical intervention with a goal of improving the functional status of the patient. In this review, we discuss the interventional management of LBP secondary to herniated nucleus pulposus, spinal stenosis, facet mediated pain, sacroiliitis, and discogenic pain.