ArticleCureus2023
The Benefit of Early Epidural Corticosteroid Injections for Acute Sciatica-Associated Lower Back Pain: A Four-Year Case Series in Lebanon.
Article in Cureus, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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2 citing papers in PubMed, 2 citations in OpenAlex.
- Coexistence of neck pain and low back pain, and their association with demographic, occupational, and spine MRI-based morphological factors in dentists.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 · 2026Article
- Clinical study of Microendoscopic Discectomy + Fibrous Ring Suture Versus Microendoscopic Discectomy alone in the treatment of lumbar disc herniation in young and middle-aged patients.Pakistan journal of medical sciencesArticle
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background Early epidural steroid injections are currently widely used for patients experiencing lumbago. However, there is uncertainty about their efficacy, such as the limitation of continuous drug infusion and the need for well-trained physicians on this technique. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of early epidural steroid injections in treating patients with acute sciatica in the lower back in terms of symptom relief and recurrence rate. Methods A case series was conducted in Lebanon from 2015 to 2019. We recruited 98 patients suffering from sciatica due to disc disease over three-time intervals: two weeks, one, and three months. The immediate results accounted for the intensity of various symptoms (numerical rating scale (NRS) for pain) and the assessment of patient satisfaction (Macnab criteria). Results The clinical results showed at least a three-point pain relief according to Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) and a good grade according to MacNab (P <0.001), with only 10.4% of the total population having a positive leg raise test post-injection. The maximum benefit was noted after two weeks from the injection with a 5.7 mean change in NRS (p<0.001) with a good/excellent response in MacNab and a 4.9 change with only a good response after one month. This study noticed a rebound phenomenon where around half of the patients needed two steroid injections after three months (39.6 % after three months and 17.9 % after six months). Conclusion Even though current guidelines worldwide may suggest the use of conservative treatment for low back pain with acute sciatica, our study has demonstrated the effectiveness of epidural steroid injections in the Lebanese population with a significant outcome.
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