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. 2017 Oct 27;15(1):1-8.
doi: 10.1016/j.jor.2017.10.001. eCollection 2018 Mar.

Lumbar facet joint injection in treating low back pain: Radiofrequency denervation versus SHAM procedure. Systematic review

Munnan Al-Najjim  1 , Rohi Shah  1 , Mahmoud Rahuma  1 , Omar Abdul Gabbar  1
Affiliations

Lumbar facet joint injection in treating low back pain: Radiofrequency denervation versus SHAM procedure. Systematic review

Munnan Al-Najjim et al. J Orthop. .

Abstract

The lumbar facet joints have been implicated as one of the causes of low-back pain syndromes. About 15-40% of patients who presented with chronic low-back pain was attributed to lumbar facet joint pain. The purpose of this study was to analyse whether radiofrequency denervation is better than SHAM procedure in treating chronic low-back pain caused by lumbar zygapophysial joints pathology. From the four identified randomised control trials, there is conflicting evidence at an intermediate 3-6-month stage, however; one study demonstrates statistical significance of radiofrequency denervation at 3 months. Longer-term follow-up is needed to prove the efficacy of radiofrequency denervation technique.

Keywords: Low back pain; Radiofrequency denervation; SHAM.

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