Efficacy of Interlaminar vs Transforaminal Epidural Steroid Injection for the Treatment of Chronic Unilateral Radicular Pain: Prospective, Randomized Study

Abstract

Using either route of epidural injections to deliver steroids for unilateral chronic radiculopathy secondary to herniated intervertebral disc provided significant improvements in patients function and pain relief. However, we could not find a statistically significant difference between two indicated groups either in functional improvement or in reduction in pain, although half-dose of steroids delivered via TF route provided somewhat better long-term pain relief and functional capacity improvements.

Efficacy of Epidural Steroid Injection in Management of Lumbar Prolapsed Intervertebral Disc: A Comparison of Caudal, Transforaminal and Interlaminar Routes

“…Similar reports were published by the successive studies [17,18]. However, controversy still persists regarding the efficacy of epidural steroids in reducing the pain and regarding the preferred route of injection [19][20][21].…”

Three week results of transforaminal epidural steroid injection in patients with chronic unilateral low back related leg pain: The relation to MRI findings and clinical features

“…surgery could have been decided upon without a prior TESI in some few cases). Still, our sample has similar characteristics as previous reports on TESI treatment and chronic radicular pain [14,42] but the results presented here may not be generalizable to all subjects with chronic low back related leg symptoms.…”

Comparison of transforaminal verse interlaminar epidural steroid injection in low back pain with lumbosacral radicular pain: a meta-analysis of the literature

“…In contrast, recent studies have suggested that TFESI was equivalent in pain relief and functional improvement to ILESI for the management of LBP secondary to lumbosacral radicular pain [30][31][32][33][34][35]. A few randomized controlled trials have focused on evaluating the efficacy of TFESI and ILESI, and the available studies are limited by their small sample size, thereby resulting in controversy over the clinical benefits of TFESI and ILESI.…”

“…The method of concealment of allocation was reported in four studies [24,26,28,31]. Four of the nine studies [26,28,31,32] performed patient blinding, and all trials demonstrated assessor blinding, with the exception of one study [32]. Regarding other bias, two studies [21,28] had been unclear.…”