Interventional Treatment of Spinal Pain: Considerations for Optimal Approach

摘要

Various interventional modalities have been introduced to treat lower back pain on an etiologic basis, and interlaminar or caudal epidural steroid injection has been widely used to treat nerve root inflammation. Outcome studies have shown that the efficacy of epidural steroid injection is variable as 25-89 %, and the result is better with radicular leg pain from disc disorders less than three months' duration (1). Evidently, epidural steroid injection is efficacious for the localized inflammation in the early stage while the injected steroid medication can reach the lateral and ventral epidural lesion efficiently. Lately, transforaminal epidural injection has gained its popularity since the nerve root and the ventral epidural space can be accessed better and its clinical efficacy has been proven (2).