Trial reportEuropean spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society2010
Plasma disc decompression for contained cervical disc herniation: a randomized, controlled trial.
Trial report in European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03485768 (Therapeutic Effects and Safety of Percutaneous Disc Decompression With Coblation Nucleoplasty in Cervical Vertigo), which is not on this map. Cited by 17 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Therapeutic Effects and Safety of Percutaneous Disc Decompression With Coblation Nucleoplasty in Cervical Vertigo
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- Nonsurgical versus surgical treatment for cervical radiculopathy: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.European journal of orthopaedic surgery & traumatology : orthopedie traumatologie · 2026Pooled it
- Surgery versus conservative care for neck pain: a systematic review.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2013Pooled it
- Research Progress on Low-Temperature Plasma Nucleoplasty and Targeted Radiofrequency for Cervical Spondylotic Radiculopathy: A Retrospective Review.Pain and therapy · 2026Review
- Minimally Invasive Percutaneous Techniques for the Treatment of Cervical Disc Herniation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- A New Role for Epidurography: A Simple Method for Assessing the Adequacy of Decompression during Percutaneous Plasma Disc Decompression.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- Management of Cervical Spondylotic Radiculopathy: A Systematic review.Global spine journal · 2022Review
- Analysis of the clinical and radiological outcomes of percutaneous cervical nucleoplasty: A case-control study.PloS one · 2022Article
- Long-Term Clinical Results of Percutaneous Cervical Nucleoplasty for Cervical Radicular Pain: A Retrospective Cohort Study.Journal of pain research · 2022Article
- Cervical Radiculopathy Focus on Characteristics and Differential Diagnosis.Asian spine journal · 2020Article
- Coblation annuloplasty in cervical discogenic pain without radiculopathy.Wideochirurgia i inne techniki maloinwazyjne = Videosurgery and other miniinvasive techniques · 2020Article
- Percutaneous cervical discectomy: retrospective comparison of two different techniques.La Radiologia medica · 2020Article
- Percutaneous cervical laser diskectomy, thermoannuloplasty, and thermonucleoplasty; comparable results without surgery.Surgical neurology international · 2017Article
- Long term follow-up of cervical intervertebral disc herniation inpatients treated with integrated complementary and alternative medicine: a prospective case series observational study.BMC complementary and alternative medicine · 2016Observational
- Neck pain with radiculopathy.BMJ clinical evidence · 2015Article
- Article
- Morphological changes in disc herniation in the lower cervical spine: an ultrastructural study.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2012Article
- Clinical outcomes of percutaneous plasma disc coagulation therapy for lumbar herniated disc diseases.Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society · 2012Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Prospective case series studies have shown that plasma disc decompression (PDD) using the COBLATION SpineWand device (ArthroCare Corporation, Austin, TX) is effective for decompressing the disc nucleus in symptomatic contained cervical disc herniations. This prospective, randomized controlled clinical trial was conducted to evaluate the clinical outcomes of percutaneous PDD as compared to conservative care (CC) through 1 year. Patients (n = 115) had neck/arm pain >50 on the visual analog scale (VAS) pain scale and had failed at least 30 days of failed CC. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either PDD (n = 62) or CC (n = 58). Clinical outcome was determined by VAS pain score, neck disability index (NDI) score, and SF-36 health survey, collected at 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year. The PDD group had significantly lower VAS pain scores at all follow-up time points (PDD vs. CC: 6 weeks, -46.87 +/- 2.71 vs. -15.26 +/- 1.97; 3 months, -53.16 +/- 2.74 vs. -30.45 +/- 2.59; 6 months, -56.22 +/- 2.63 vs. -40.26 +/- 2.56; 1 year, -65.73 +/- 2.24 vs. -36.45 +/- 2.86; GEE, P < 0.0001). PDD patients also had significant NDI score improvement over baseline when compared to CC patients at the 6 weeks (PDD vs. CC: -9.15 +/- 1.06 vs. -4.61 +/- 0.53, P < 0.0001) and 1 year (PDD vs. CC: -16.70 +/- 0.29 vs. -12.40 +/- 1.26, P = 0.005) follow-ups. PDD patients showed statistically significant improvement over baseline in SF-36 physical component summary scores when compared to CC patients at 6 weeks and 1 year (PDD vs. CC: 8.86 + 8.04 vs. 4.24 +/- 3.79, P = 0.0004; 17.64 +/- 10.37 vs. 10.50 +/- 10.6, P = 0.0003, respectively). In patients who had neck/arm pain due to a contained cervical disc herniation, PDD was associated with significantly better clinical outcomes than a CC regimen. At 1 year, CC patients appeared to suffer a "relapse, showing signs of decline in most measurements, whereas PDD patients showed continued stable improvement.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.