Intraspinal steroids: history, efficacy, accidentality, and controversy with review of United States Food and Drug Administration reports.

This review, covering a timespan of almost a century, attempts to answer five pressing questions: (1) Are intraspinal steroid therapies eVective for back pain or radicular syndromes? (2) Do epidural injections remain confined to the epidural space? (3) Are presently prescribed steroid formulations neurotoxic? (4) What are the risks of epidural steroid injection? (5) What information should be given to patients in obtaining informed consent for these procedures?