Efficacy of paraspinal anesthetic block in patients with chronic pelvic pain refractory to drug therapy: a randomized clinical trial

Karen Felix da Rosa, Vinícius Atrib Amantéa, Antônio Cardoso dos Santos, Ricardo Francalacci Savaris
In: Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia · 2015 · vol. 37(3) , pp. 105–109 · doi:10.1590/so100-720320150005201 · PMID:25830642 · W2030913729
article OA: diamond CC0 ⤵ 1 in-corpus citation
📄 Open PDF View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-10 ⓘ

This randomized trial found that paraspinal anesthetic block provided a statistically significant reduction in pain scores immediately after injection for chronic pelvic pain, but this benefit did not persist one week later.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-10 ⓘ

This randomized, double-blind, superiority clinical trial evaluated whether paraspinal anesthetic block with 1% lidocaine (no epinephrine) reduces visual analog scale pain compared with placebo in adult women with chronic pelvic pain of benign origin that was refractory to drug therapy, recruited from a tertiary chronic pain outpatient clinic. Using pinch-and-roll to identify peripheral nerve root sensitization, investigators injected lidocaine along the spinal process and supraspinal/interspinal ligaments of the most affected segment, while placebo involved needle placement without injection; pain was assessed by a blinded examiner at baseline, within 15 minutes, and one week. The paraspinal block produced a statistically significant small improvement immediately after injection (T0 to T1, p=0.03) but showed no sustained benefit at one week. The paper explicitly notes that further studies are needed to test different lidocaine doses for visceral pain from other causes. This paper does not explicitly discuss endometriosis or adenomyosis; it was included in the corpus via a keyword match in the upstream search index.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

PURPOSE: To determine whether paraspinal block reduces pain scores compared to placebo in women with chronic pelvic pain refractory to drug therapy. METHODS: Subjects with chronic pelvic pain due to benign conditions and refractory to drug therapy were invited to participate in a randomized, double blind, superiority trial at a tertiary reference center. Subjects were randomly allocated to receive paraspinal anesthetic block with 1% lidocaine without epinephrine or placebo (control). Lidocaine was injected along the spinal process of the painful segment in the supra- and interspinal ligaments using a 25G X 2" needle. Placebo consisted of introduction of the needle in the same segment without injecting any substance. The main outcome measured was the pain score based on a visual analog scale at T0 (baseline), T1 (within 15 min after the procedure) and T2 (one week after the procedure). Data were statistically analyzed by ANOVA and the 95% confidence interval (95%CI). RESULTS: Mean age was similar for both groups, i.e., 51.2 (paraspinal anesthetic block) and 51.8 years (control). A blind examiner measured the degree of pain according to the visual analog scale from 0 (no pain) to 10 (worst pain imaginable). Based on the visual analog scale, the mean pain scores of the paraspinal anesthetic block group at T0, T1 and T2 were 5.50 (SD=2.92; 95%CI 3.84-7.15), 2.72 (SD=2.10; 95%CI 1.53-3.90), and 4.36 (SD=2.37; 95%CI 1.89-6.82), respectively. The difference between T0 and T1 was statistically significant, with p=0.03. CONCLUSIONS: Paraspinal anesthetic block had a small effect on visual analog scale pain score immediately after the injections, but no sustained benefit after one week. Further studies are needed to determine the efficacy of paraspinal anesthetic block with different lidocaine doses for the treatment of visceral pain of other causes.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

chronic_pelvic_pain

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (36)

Cited by (1)

Source provenance

openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK