Effectiveness of intradiscal steroid injection for spinal stenosis: a retrospective cohort study in South Korea.

Study Design: A retrospective cohort study.

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of intradiscal steroid injection (ISI) in managing patients with spinal stenosis.

Overview Of Literature: ISI has shown effectiveness in relieving lower back pain in patients with degenerative disc disease. However, its potential utility in managing the symptoms of spinal stenosis remains unexplored.

Methods: This study included 260 patients with spinal stenosis who complained of lower back pain and radiating pain in the lower extremities. During the ISI, a mixture of 1 mL of dexamethasone 5 mg and 1 mL of ropivacaine 0.2% was administered. Pain levels were assessed at weeks 2 and 6 after ISI using the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) for back and leg pain. Patients requiring surgery within a year because of persistent or worsening symptoms were analyzed, and pain score changes between the surgical and nonsurgical groups were compared.

Results: ISI significantly reduced the initial back pain VAS score (8.85) and leg pain VAS score (8.91) at weeks 2 (back pain=4.58; p<0.001, leg pain=4.42; p<0.001) and 6 (back pain=4.79; p<0.001, leg pain=4.70; p<0.001). A total of 228 patients (87.7%) showed improvement of initial symptoms without the need for surgery 1 year after ISI. The surgical and nonsurgical groups showed improvement in leg and back pain VAS scores 2 weeks after ISI. However, in the surgical group, a significant trend was noted toward worsening back and leg pain VAS score at week 6 after ISI.

Conclusions: ISI effectively provided temporary pain relief for patients with lumbar spinal stenosis. The majority of patients, up to 1 year later, only necessitate conservative management of their symptoms and do not require surgery. In particular, if the improvement in pain persists up to 6 weeks after the ISI, surgical intervention may be delayed in favor of more conservative treatments.