Cervical Medial Branch Block Volume Dependent Dispersion Patterns as a Predictor for Ablation Success: A Cadaveric Study

Neck pain is one of the most common causes of chronic pain and the fourth leading cause of disability worldwide; it is estimated that between 36% to 67% of this pain is due to facet arthropathy. For patients who have pain refractory to conservative treatments literature supports management with diagnostic cervical medial branch blocks (cMBBs) to identify the associated facet innervation as the source of pain followed by therapeutic radiofrequency ablation (RFA) of the identified nerves. Cervical RFA has good published outcomes, but the procedure is dependent upon the specificity of the diagnostic block to achieve maximal success.

Source: PM and R - October 24, 2018 Category: Rehabilitation Authors: Sayed E. Wahezi, Jocelin Jones Molina, Edward Alexeev, John S. Georgy, Nogah Haramati, Stephen A. Erosa, Jay M. Shah, Sherry Downie Source Type: research