TREATMENT OF RADICULAR COMPRESSION BY EPI DURAL INFILTRATION - A REPORT OF 200 CASES

Introduction The authors report a prospective study on the treatment o f radicular compression using epidural infiltrations. Material and met hods An open study was performed on 200 patients suffering from radicu lar compression due to either herniated lumbar discs (124 cases), lumb ar stenosis (32 cases) or segmental lumbar stenosis (44 cases) and tre ated by epidural infiltrations. Results Of the 200 patients studied, 7 4 per cent did not need subsequent surgical treatment. Therapeutic eff ect was influenced by several parameters: - etiology of radicular comp ression: 65 per cent favorable results in herniated discs; 69 per cent in lumbar stenosis; and 91 per cent favorable results in segmental lu mbar stenosis; - age of patients: 100 per cent favorable in patients > 70 years, while only very few favorable results in patients < 20 year s of age. - chronic or acute radicular pain: among the patients who ha d herniated discs requiring subsequent surgery, 65 per cent presented with acute lesions (pain for < 4 months). In patients with lumbar sten osis requiring surgery, 80 per cent had acute lesion and in patients w ith segmental lumbar stenosis, no patients complained of acute pain. D iscussion Avoiding surgical treatment is not the only parameter which should be studied in evaluating the effectiveness of treatment. Lassal e's pre and postoperative evaluation with a minimum 1 year follow up s howed improvement in all non surgical cases. When compared to the lite rature, this study shows favorable long term results.