Thoracic Facet Blocks: Bent Needle Technique

Thoracic facet blocks: bent needle technique.

Thoracic posterior joints are putative pain generators; yet there is a paucity of information to assist the clinician in the diagnosis and treatment of dorsal spine pain. A safe and effective bent needle injection/arthrography technique is described which can assist in the diagnosis of some patients with thoracic zygapophyseal joint dysfunction.

Diagnostic accuracy of thoracic facet joint nerve blocks: an update of the assessment of evidence.

BACKGROUND Chronic mid back and upper back pain caused by thoracic facet joints has been reported in 34% to 48% of the patients based on their responses to controlled diagnostic blocks. Systematic reviews have established moderate evidence for controlled comparative local anesthetic blocks of thoracic facet joints in the diagnosis of mid back and upper back pain. OBJECTIVE To determine the di...

Workflow in Interventional Radiology: Nerve Blocks and Facet Blocks

Workflow analysis has the potential to dramatically improve the efficiency and clinical outcomes of medical procedures. In this study, we recorded the workflow for nerve block and facet block procedures in the interventional radiology suite at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC, USA. We employed a custom client/server software architecture developed by the Innovation Center for Co...

FaCet bloCKs in diagnosis and treatMent

Efficacy of needle-placement technique in radiofrequency ablation for treatment of lumbar facet arthropathy

BACKGROUND Many studies have assessed the efficacy of radiofrequency ablation to denervate the facet joint as an interventional means of treating axial low-back pain. In these studies, varying procedural techniques were utilized to ablate the nerves that innervate the facet joints. To date, no comparison studies have been performed to suggest superiority of one technique or even compare the pre...