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Studies of the efficacy of intradiscal glucocorticoid injections (GCIs) for chronic low back pain have yielded equivocal results. However, the lack of efficacy might have been caused by improper patient selection. In this study from France, researchers evaluated intradiscal GCI in a subgroup of 135 patients whose chronic low back pain was associated with active discopathy (i.e., vertebral endplate bone edema adjacent to a degenerated disc, identified on magnetic resonance imaging). Patients were randomized to receive either a single GCI during discography (injection of contrast into the disc) or discography alone.
Baseline mean intensity of low back pain was 69 on a 0- to 100-point scale. At 1 month, improvement (i.e., low back pain intensit…