Patients with spinal stenosis (SS) experienced good short term benefit, lasting from weeks to months, after receiving epidural steroid injections (ESI). It has been one year since the publication of "A Randomized Trial of Epidural Glucocorticoid Steroid Injections for Spinal Stenosis." This was a large scale clinical trial evaluating the use of ESI for SS. Pain physicians argued the validity of the results based on the experimental set-up and study design.
In academic meetings and clinical discussion among pain specialists, some very much agreed with the main study result: ESI are not very helpful for SS, while others reported consistent, short-term pain benefit of SS symptoms. Lumbar spinal stenosis is a common painful problem due to worsening constrictive arthritis in the low back, affecting the legs and walking. Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) performed a…
