Common Back and Leg Pain Treatment May Not Help Much

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Common Back and Leg Pain Treatment May Not Help Much

A widely used method of treating a common cause of back and leg pain — steroid injections for spinal stenosis — may provide little benefit for many patients, according to a new study that experts said should make doctors and patients think twice about the treatment.

Hundreds of thousands of injections are given for stenosis each year in the United States, experts say, costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

But the study, the largest randomized trial evaluating the treatment, found that patients receiving a standard stenosis injection — which combine a steroid and a local anesthetic — had no less pain and virtually no greater function after six weeks than patients injected with anesthetic alone. 

The research, involving 400 patients at 16 sites,  was published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

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