Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Multicenter Study Controlled Clinical Trial
The Effects of Local Anesthesia Administration on Pain Experience During Interventional Spine Procedures: A Prospective Controlled Trial.
It has been postulated that local anesthetic administration may be the most painful part of interventional spine procedures. Despite this, there is a lack of evidence supporting the commonly used traditional technique of anesthetic delivery as part of these procedures. This study tested three hypotheses: 1) alternative method of local anesthesia injection is superior to the traditional method; 2) using the traditional method of injection is not superior to using no local anesthetic; and 3) treatment needle size, anesthetic injection technique, and sedation are associated with pain experienced during procedures. ⋯ The alternative method was superior (P < 0.05) to the traditional method on post procedural pain scores. Injecting local anesthetic with the traditional or alternative method was not superior to using no local anesthetic. Treatment needle size, pain at one inch of treatment needle insertion, and baseline pain were all significantly (P < 0.05) associated with overall procedural pain. Further studies are needed optimize and justify local anesthetic injections for these procedures.