Pulsed Radiofrequency Treatment in Lumbar Facet-Related Pain

Başakşehir Çam & Sakura City Hospital

Status: Completed

Conditions: Pain Syndrome; Facet Joint Pain; Pain, Chronic

Treatments: Procedure: Median branch pulsed radiofrequency; Procedure: Intra-articular pulsed radiofrequency

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06157294

2021.05.102

Details and patient eligibility

About

Facet joint-related pain is one of the leading causes of low back pain. Facet joint-related disorders can have a negative impact on quality of life and daily living activities, in addition to the pain.Conservative treatment methods such as analgesic medications, physical therapy, and manual therapy are used for facet joint-related low back pain, and interventional pain management practices are used in patients who do not respond adequately to these treatments.

Pulse radiofrequency application, which is a recent popular treatment in interventional pain management, is also frequently applied in the treatment of facet-joint related pain. Pulsed radiofrequency intervention can be applied directly intra-articularly or can be applied to the median branch, which is important structure in pain transmission. Although both methods are frequently used in pain management, there is a lack of information in the literature about which is more effective. This study aimed to compare the treatment results of intraarticular pulse radiofrequency application and median branch pulse radiofrequency application in facet joint-related low back pain.

Enrollment: 116 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 80 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Having facet joint-related low back pain at least 3 months
• No response to other conservative treatments (analgesic medications, physical therapy, manuel therapy etc.)
• Patients with a pain severity score of at least 6 according to NRS

Exclusion criteria

• History of lumbar region surgery
• Patients with bleeding disorders
• Presence of pregnancy and breastfeeding status
• Presence of the infection related findings and any other systemic disorder
• History of allergic reaction to contrast agent
• Patients who do not have sufficient mental function to fill out the scales during the follow-up periods

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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116 participants in 2 patient groups

Intra-articular pulsed radiofrequency group

Active Comparator group

Description:

This arm consists of patients who received intra-articular pulse radiofrequency treatment.

Treatment:

Procedure: Intra-articular pulsed radiofrequency

Median branch pulsed radiofrequency group

Active Comparator group

Description:

This arm consists of patients who received median branch pulse radiofrequency treatment.

Treatment:

Procedure: Median branch pulsed radiofrequency