Decompression of the greater occipital nerve improves outcome in patients with chronic headache and neck pain - a retrospective cohort study.

Background: Compression of the greater occipital nerve (GON) may contribute to chronic headache, neck pain, and migraine in a subset of patients. We aimed to evaluate whether GON decompression could reduce pain and improve quality of life in patients with occipital neuralgia and chronic headache and neck pain.

Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, selected patients with neck pain and headache referred to a single neurosurgical center were analyzed.

Repetitive transforaminal steroid injections in cervical radiculopathy: a prospective outcome study including 140 patients.

Study Design:  Prospective case series.

Objective:  To evaluate the effect of three repetitive transforaminal steroid injections in a large series of selected patients with cervical radiculopathy caused by spondylosis.

Methods:  Consecutively, 140 patients with long-lasting medical history, clinical findings, and MRI indicating a cervical nerve root origin based on degenerative disease and a positive selective transforaminal diagnostic nerve root blocks with local anesthetics resulting in at least 50% temporary arm pain reduction were included.

Olfactory stem cells can be induced to express chondrogenic phenotype in a rat intervertebral disc injury model.

Background: In humans, lower back pain is one of the most common causes of morbidity. Many studies implicate degeneration of intervertebral discs as the cause. In the normal intervertebral disc, the nucleus pulposus exerts a hydrostatic pressure against the constraining annulus fibrosus, which allows the disc to maintain flexibility between adjacent vertebrae, while absorbing necessary compressive forces.

Spinal cord injury--scientific challenges for the unknown future.

The history of spinal cord injuries starts with the ancient Egyptian medical papyrus known as the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus. The papyrus written about 2500 B.C.

Headache in patients with cervical radiculopathy: a prospective study with selective nerve root blocks in 275 patients.

Since many years we routinely use diagnostic selective nerve root blocks (SNRB) at our department when evaluating patients with cervical radiculopathy. Frequently patients who also presented with headache reported that the headache disappeared when the nerve root responsible for the radicular pain was blocked with local anaesthetics. Headache has been described as a companioning symptom related to cervical radiculopathy but has never before been evaluated with SNRB performed in the lower cervical spine.

Transforaminal steroid injections for the treatment of cervical radiculopathy: a prospective and randomised study.

Steroid injections are often employed as an alternative treatment for radicular pain in patients with degenerative spinal disorders. Prospective randomised studies of the lumbar spine reveal contradictory results and non-randomised and most often retrospective studies of the cervical spine indicate pain reduction from steroid injections. No prospective randomised study on transforaminal steroid injections for the treatment of radicular pain in the cervical spine focusing on short-term results has been performed.

Distribution patterns of transforaminal injections in the cervical spine evaluated by multi-slice computed tomography.

Transforaminal injections are sometimes used for the diagnosis and treatment of painful conditions in the lumbar and to a lesser degree in the cervical spine. The technique is most often used when investigating/treating radiculopathy caused by degenerative disease. But how selective are the nerve root blocks? What possible structures other than the intended nerve root are affected from such injections? This study was undertaken in order to try to answer these questions, as no study focusing on the possible spread from the transforaminal selective nerve root blocks in the cervical spine has been performed earlier.

Selective diagnostic nerve root block for the evaluation of radicular pain in the multilevel degenerated cervical spine.

In patients with radiculopathy due to degenerative disease in the cervical spine, surgical outcome is still presenting with moderate results. The preoperative investigations consist of clinical investigation, careful history and most often magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the cervical spine. When MRI shows multilevel degeneration, different strategies are used for indicating which nerve root/roots are affected.