ArticleInterventional pain medicine2025
No major complications seen in a retrospective review of 1,018 cervical transforaminal epidural steroid injections.
Article in Interventional pain medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Outcomes after cervical transforaminal epidural steroid injections vs cervical interlaminar epidural steroid injections: A propensity matched comparison study utilizing a large national database.Interventional pain medicine · 2026Article
- Rates of cervical spine surgery and repeat epidural injections after cervical transforaminal epidural steroid injections for patients with cervical radiculopathy utilizing a large national database.Interventional pain medicine · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Cervical transforaminal epidural steroid injections (CTFESI) are commonly used to treat cervical radicular pain, but concerns remain about their safety due to case reports of complications such as stroke, spinal cord injury and death. These complications have been associated with use of particulate steroids causing embolic infarcts from inadvertent intra-arterial injection. With the use of non-particulate steroids these complications have never been reported. Additionally, recent cohort studies have demonstrated safety. Yet many providers still consider these procedures to be unsafe. Additional work is needed to further elucidate the risk of complications after CTFESI. Objective: The goal of this study is to demonstrate the safety of CTFESI in a large retrospective cohort study using non-particulate steroids. Methods: Medical records of all consecutive patients who underwent CFTESI within a tertiary academic multidisciplinary spine center from December 2002 through September 2024 were retrospectively reviewed. Data collected included vertebral level of injection, major (stroke, seizure, spinal cord injury, and death) and minor (headache, diaphoresis, syncope) complications, ED/urgent care visits within 2 weeks of procedure, and length of follow up within the performing PM&R department. Results: A total of 1018 CTFESI procedures involving 558 patients were reviewed. There were no major complications in our study and no patients necessitated an ED or urgent care visit. Of 1018 total procedures, 16 (1.57 %) were attempted and aborted mid-procedure. Of these, 3 procedures were aborted due to inability to access the neuroforamen, 6 procedures were aborted due to signs of vascular uptake and/or subjective symptoms of vascular uptake, 3 procedures were aborted due to patient inability to tolerate the procedure, and 4 procedures were aborted due to vasovagal response. Only 1 (0.01 %) procedure resulted in a vasovagal response (hypotension, bradycardia, dizziness) following completion of the procedure. Conclusion: This study demonstrated no major complications after fluoroscopy guided CTFESI with use of non-particulate steroids and standard safety techniques.
Identifiers
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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.