The Controversy Regarding the Optimal Management of Chronic Low Back Pain: Interventional vs. Medical Treatment

만성요통의 적정 치료를 둘러싼 논란: 중재적 치료 대 보존적 치료

  • Kwon, O-Hyun (Department of Neurology, College of Medicine, Eulji University)
  • 권오현 (을지대학교 의과대학 을지병원 신경과)
  • Received : 2010.06.05
  • Accepted : 2010.06.10
  • Published : 2010.06.30

Abstract

Chronic non-specific low back pain (CLBP) is one of the major health problems casting substantial amount of economic expenses and negative impact on quality of life onto an individual as well as society. On contrary to public familiarity, the ways of management of CLBP are diverse and there is yet no general consensus about which approach is better than others or to whom the specific management should be applied. Some hold the negative point of view on the efficacy of the invasive maneuver such as epidural injection because there is no controlled clinical trial (RCT) yielding better long term outcome of those invasive managements over conservative ones. But the experts of interventional or surgical treatment stress the methodological difficulty in performing RCT and assert that those invasive treatments can bring the prompt and complete resolution of low back pain and restoration of function in appropriately selected cases. These seemingly opposite views on the invasive management on CLBP are rather complimentary each other than to be contradictory.

Keywords

References

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