Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Daegu Catholic University Medical Center, Daegu, Republic of Korea.
Department of Medical Statistics, Daegu Catholic University School of Medicine, Daegu, Republic of Korea.
Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 Aug 12;101(32):e29370. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000029370.
Lumbar radiculopathy can be presented as low back pain and radiating pain. Transforaminal epidural steroid injection (TFESI) has been used to treat radicular pain, and after the injection, additional medications such as gabapentinoids including pregabalin (PGB) and gabapentin (GBP) can be administered to relieve remnant pain. However, little is known about the effectiveness of gabapentinoids in relieving pain after transforaminal epidural steroid injection. This study was conducted to compare the effect of pregabalin and gabapentin in lumbar radiculopathy patients who underwent transforaminal epidural steroid injection. One hundred seven patients who received TFESI and had taken PGB or GBP after the intervention at Daegu Catholic University Medical Center from January 2013 to August 2021 were included in this study. Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) was evaluated in all patients. Among 107 patients, 57 (53.3%) patients took PGB and 50 (46.7%) patients took GBP after TFESI. The PGB and GBP groups showed reduced VAS scores according to visit (P < .001). However, no statistically significant differences in VAS scores according to the types of medication (P = .811) and change aspects according to visit were observed between the PGB and GBP groups (P = .947). The study findings suggest that both pregabalin and gabapentin can be equally used to reduce pain in lumbar radiculopathy patients who underwent TFESI. Further studies with larger sample size are needed to generalize the findings of this study.
腰椎神经根病可表现为腰痛和放射痛。经椎间孔硬膜外类固醇注射（TFESI）已被用于治疗神经根痛，并且在注射后，可以给予加巴喷丁类药物（包括普瑞巴林（PGB）和加巴喷丁（GBP））来缓解残留疼痛。然而，关于加巴喷丁类药物在经椎间孔硬膜外类固醇注射后缓解疼痛的效果知之甚少。本研究旨在比较普瑞巴林和加巴喷丁在接受经椎间孔硬膜外类固醇注射的腰椎神经根病患者中的疗效。本研究纳入了 2013 年 1 月至 2021 年 8 月期间在大邱天主教大学医疗中心接受 TFESI 并在干预后服用 PGB 或 GBP 的 107 例患者。所有患者均进行了视觉模拟评分（VAS）评估。在 107 例患者中，57 例（53.3%）患者在接受 TFESI 后服用 PGB，50 例（46.7%）患者服用 GBP。PGB 和 GBP 组的 VAS 评分均随就诊次数而降低（P<0.001）。然而，两组之间根据药物类型的 VAS 评分（P=0.811）和根据就诊次数的变化方面没有统计学差异（P=0.947）。研究结果表明，普瑞巴林和加巴喷丁均可用于减轻接受 TFESI 的腰椎神经根病患者的疼痛。需要更大样本量的进一步研究来推广本研究的结果。
