Trial reportThe Journal of bone and joint surgery. American volume2012
The impact of epidural steroid injections on the outcomes of patients treated for lumbar disc herniation: a subgroup analysis of the SPORT trial.
Trial report in The Journal of bone and joint surgery. American volume, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 73 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Return to work rates of workers compensation patients with lumbar radiculopathy following epidural steroid injection.Interventional pain medicine · 2026Article
- Bringing Back Theorizing Medical Hypotheses to Spine Surgery Research in an Age of Overreliance on Randomized Controlled Trials.International journal of spine surgery · 2025Article
- Epidural Steroid Injections for Lumbar Disc Herniation and Lumbar Degenerative Disc Disease.Journal of orthopaedic case reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Epidural steroid injections in lumbar disc herniation- Evidence synthesis from 72 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and a total of 7701 patients.Brain & spine · 2025Article
- Effectiveness of Interventional Pain Management on Disc Herniation Resorption: Radiological Evidence.Acta informatica medica : AIM : journal of the Society for Medical Informatics of Bosnia & Herzegovina : casopis Drustva za medicinsku informatiku BiH · 2025Article
- Unilateral biportal endoscopic discectomy via translaminar approach for highly upward-migrated lumbar disc herniation: a technical note and preliminary treatment outcomes.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2024Article
- The association between preoperative epidural steroid injections and postoperative cervical and lumbar surgical site infections: A systematic review and meta-analysis.North American Spine Society journal · 2024Review
- Immune exposure: how macrophages interact with the nucleus pulposus.Frontiers in immunology · 2023Review
- The Impact of Corticosteroid Injection Timing on Infection Rates Following Spine Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Global spine journal · 2022Article
- Epidural Steroid Injections for Low Back Pain: A Narrative Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Review
- Artificial intelligence predicts disk re-herniation following lumbar microdiscectomy: development of the "RAD" risk profile.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 · 2021Article
- Preoperative epidural steroid injections are not associated with increased rates of infection and dural tear in lumbar spine surgery.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 · 2021Article
- Recent Preoperative Lumbar Epidural Steroid Injection Is an Independent Risk Factor for Incidental Durotomy During Lumbar Discectomy.Global spine journal · 2019Article
- Effects of implementing evidence-based appropriateness guidelines for epidural steroid injection in chronic low back pain: the EAGER (Esi Appropriateness GuidElines pRotocol) study.BMJ open quality · 2019Observational
- Article
- Relationship between serum levels of miR-204 and clinical features of patients with lumbar disc herniation - an analysis based on 1,589 cases.Experimental and therapeutic medicine · 2018Article
- Factors for Predicting Favorable Outcome of Percutaneous Epidural Adhesiolysis for Lumbar Disc Herniation.Pain research & management · 2017Article
- Classification of patients with incident non-specific low back pain: implications for research.The spine journal : official journal of the North American Spine Society · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT) is a prospective, multicenter study of operative versus nonoperative treatment of lumbar intervertebral disc herniation. It has been suggested that epidural steroid injections may help improve patient outcomes and lower the rate of crossover to surgical treatment.
methodsOne hundred and fifty-four patients included in the intervertebral disc herniation arm of the SPORT who had received an epidural steroid injection during the first three months of the study and no injection prior to the study (the ESI group) were compared with 453 patients who had not received an injection during the first three months of the study or prior to the study (the No-ESI group).
resultsThere was a significant difference in the preference for surgery between groups (19% in the ESI group compared with 56% in the No-ESI group, p < 0.001). There was no difference in primary or secondary outcome measures at four years between the groups. A higher percentage of patients changed from surgical to nonsurgical treatment in the ESI group (41% versus 12% in the No-ESI, p < 0.001).
conclusionsPatients with lumbar disc herniation treated with epidural steroid injection had no improvement in short or long-term outcomes compared with patients who were not treated with epidural steroid injection. There was a higher prevalence of crossover to nonsurgical treatment among surgically assigned ESI-group patients, although this was confounded by the increased baseline desire to avoid surgery among patients in the ESI group. Given these data, we concluded that more studies are necessary to establish the value of epidural steroid injection for symptomatic lumbar intervertebral disc herniation.
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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.