Abstract
We evaluated the results of steroid intradiscal injection therapy (SIDT) in patients presenting with lumbar disc herniation. The short term (6 months post injection ) efficacy rate (excellent+good results) was 60.1%, and the long term (more than 5 years post injection) efficacy rate was 64.4%. Sorted by age, efficacy rate was worse at 31.4% for patients in their teens, with better results achieved for patients in their fiftties and sixties. We were able to determine that for release of low back pain and leg pain, SIDT was more effective than the nerve root block. After SIDT, the incidence and degree of calcification in our patients were significantly lower than those reported in previous studies. Intradiscal injection of betamethasone did not appear to confer any incremental relative risk for lumbar spinal canal calcification based on review of follow-up X-ray.
