An International Survey on the Practice of Lumbar Radiofrequency Ablation for Management of Zygapophyseal (Facet)-Mediated Low Back Pain

Alaa Abd-Elsayed; Nomen Azeem; Pooja Chopra; Ryan S D'Souza; Dawood Sayed; Timothy Deer

doi:10.2147/JPR.S354506

An International Survey on the Practice of Lumbar Radiofrequency Ablation for Management of Zygapophyseal (Facet)-Mediated Low Back Pain

J Pain Res. 2022 Apr 14:15:1083-1090. doi: 10.2147/JPR.S354506. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Alaa Abd-Elsayed¹, Nomen Azeem², Pooja Chopra³, Ryan S D'Souza⁴, Dawood Sayed⁵, Timothy Deer⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Anesthesiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA.
² Florida Spine & Pain Specialists, Tampa, FL, USA.
³ Bux Pain Management, Danville, KY, USA.
⁴ Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Mayo Clinic Hospital, Rochester, MN, USA.
⁵ Department of Pain Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, USA.
⁶ The Spine and Nerve Centers, Charleston, WV, USA.

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this study was to survey current clinical practice related to lumbar radiofrequency (RFA) for the treatment of zygapophyseal (facet)-mediated low back pain.

Methods: Survey questions regarding the clinical practice of lumbar RFA were created and piloted by the American Society of Pain and Neuroscience (ASPN) leadership. After revision for clarity, health-care professionals worldwide who hold membership status within the ASPN Society and who offer lumbar RFA in their clinical practice were recruited to participate in this online survey. All responses were tabulated and summarized descriptively.

Results: A total of 329 participants responded in the survey. Most participants specialized in anesthesiology (68.4%) and physical medicine and rehabilitation (21.8%) and had been practicing pain management for more than five years (70.5%). Of physician respondents, 27.5% did not complete an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited pain medicine fellowship and 16.5% were not board-certified in pain medicine. The majority of providers (69.7%) reported that they perform two diagnostic medial branch blocks prior to proceeding with lumbar RFA. Bupivacaine 0.5% was the most common medication utilized for both the first (37.4%) and second (37.1%) diagnostic blocks. There were 32.6% of total respondents who reported not utilizing contrast dye when performing diagnostic blocks. The vast majority of providers (91.4%) reported using conventional RFA for lumbar medial branch neurotomy.

Conclusion: This survey study provides a summary of the application of lumbar RFA for the treatment of axial low back pain in the real-world setting. We highlight a significant portion of providers who perform lumbar RFA yet do not have pain fellowship training at an ACGME-accredited institution or do not maintain current pain medicine board certification. We also report deviations from standard practice, specifically the type of local anesthetic used for comparative diagnostic blocks and the omission of contrast injection during diagnostic blocks.

Keywords: clinical practice; low back pain; medial branch block; radiofrequency ablation; survey.

Grants and funding

There is no funding to report.