SPINAL STENOSIS

Introduction: Spinal stenosis causing lower back pain and radiculopathy andit is the most common cause of patient admission at Spine centre as compared to other spinepathologies. Most common complaint in the Spine outpatient department or hospital admissionsDifferent modalities have been applied with time for its management. Among them Epiduralsteroid injection is also. Objectives: “To Compare three doses of epidural steroid injection withsingle dose of epidural steroid injection for Lumbar Radicular pain in spinal stenosis patients.”Study Design: Prospective study. Setting: Ghurki Trust Teaching Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan.Period: Jan 2016 to Dec 2016. Materials and Methods: 95 patients with lumbar radicular paindue to spinal stenosis were randomly allocated into 2 groups. In Group A, 42 patients were given120 mg of Depo-medrol (40 mg per day for 3 days) along with local anesthesia and in group B,43 patients were given 40 mg of Depo-medrol with local anesthesia as a single dose. Both GroupA and Group B were matched in terms of age and gender. On visual analogue scoring, pain wasassessed after 2 weeks, 3 months and 6 months. Results: In Group A (3 doses of depomedrol)VAS improvement at 2 weeks, 3 months and 6 months were more than group B (single dose ofdepomedrol) which was statistically significant (p < 0.05). There were no major complicationslike epidural hematoma or abscess formation in both groups. The overall minor complicationslike flushing, transient hyperglycemia and headache due to CSF hypotension were more inGroup A than Group B but statistics shows no significant difference. All the adverse eventsresolved within few days without any significant morbidity and subsequent hospitalizations.Conclusion: Epidural steroid injection is excellent modality in the treatment of lower back painwith radiculopathy. Moreover 3 doses have greater effect in relieving pain as compared to singledose. There is no increase risk of complications by increasing dose.