To evaluate the therapeutic effect of transforaminal selective nerve root sleeve injections (TFSNRIs) in a specific subset of patients with clinical symptoms and presentation consistent with spinal stenosis DESIGN: Retrospective review SETTING: tertiary academic spine center.
A total of 176 patients with radicular leg pain with or without low back pain as well as ≥3 clinical features of spinal stenosis and corroborative radiographic features of spinal stenosis on lumbar spine magnetic resonance imaging without confounding spinal pathology.
fluoroscopically guided transforaminal selective nerve root sleeve injections MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Patient Reported Outcome Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Physical Function (PF) v1.2/v2.0, Pain Interference (PI) v1.1, and PROMIS (D) v1.0 were collected at baseline and post-procedure short-term (< 3-months) and long-term (6-12 month) follow-up. Statistical analysis comparing baseline and postprocedural PROMIS scores was performed. Differences were compared to previously established minimal clinically important differences in the spine population.
For patients with spinal stenosis treated with TFSNRI no statistically significant improvement was observed short- and long-term follow-up in PROMIS PF (p= 0.97, 0.77) and PROMIS Depression (p= 0.86, 0.85) scores. At short-term follow-up, PROMIS PI scores did significantly improve (p= 0.01) but the average difference of pre- and post-procedure scores did not reach clinical significance. No significant difference in PROMIS PI was noted at long-term follow-up (0.75).
Although a statistically significant difference was observed for improvement in pain, in this retrospective study, TFSNRI did not provide clinically significant improvement in patients’ function, pain, or depression for lumbar spinal stenosis at short- and long-term follow-up.

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