Betamethasone: friend (soluble), foe (particulate), or either?

摘要

I commend Drs. R. Derby, S.H. Lee, Date, J.H. Lee, and C.H. Lee for their important research of corticosteroid particle sizes and their excellent article [1] outlining the clinical relevance of their findings. This is clearly an important topic, and their handling of it will no doubt lead to safer clinical practice pertaining to cervical transforami-nal and possibly other epidural steroid injections. I am concerned, however, that there are mispercep-tions regarding betamethasone that have sprung from the article, as evidenced by my conversations with pain physicians locally and nationally, and as reported in a recent issue of SpineLine [2].