Discogenic pain is a known cause of low back pain (LBP). There are several proposed minimally invasive treatments in the literature including: percutaneous laser disc decompression, multiple radiofrequency thermocoagulation/ablative techniques, and intradiscal injection of varying medications. The body of literature suffers significantly from patient heterogeneity due to a lack of stringent inclusion criteria. Additional concerns in the literature include random follow-up times, variability in reported results, and non-reproducibility of findings. Collectively, these flaws significantly limit the conclusions that can be made regarding treating those with suspected discogenic pain. Despite this, the article will review the published literature to date on the interventional procedures for patients with suspected discogenic LBP.
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