Efficacy of intradiscal Ozone nucleolysis in improving pain and function in patients with lumbar prolapsed intervertebral disc

Utpalendu Debnath; Romi Singh Nongmaithem; Jotin Singh Yengkhom; Kaustav Basuthakur; Ranjan Kumar Lisham; Obit Jerang

Volume : VIII, Issue : V, May - 2019

Efficacy of intradiscal Ozone nucleolysis in improving pain and function in patients with lumbar prolapsed intervertebral disc

Utpalendu Debnath, Romi Singh Nongmaithem, Jotin Singh Yengkhom, Kaustav Basuthakur, Ranjan Kumar Lisham, Obit Jerang

Abstract :

Introduction: The prevalence rate of low back pain ranges from 22% to 65% in one year and the lifetime prevalence ranges from 11% to 84%. Different treatment modalities are available like nerve root block, epidural steroid injection, endoscopic discectomy, micro discectomy & classical laminectomy and discectomy. There are very few randomized control trials comp� ozone nucleolysis (ONL) with another treatment at present. In this study we therefore tried to find out the efficacy of ONL in improving pain as well as function in patients with lumbar herniated disc. Materials and methods: A prospective study was conducted on 54 patients with low back pain due to lumber disc prolapse was carried out after obtaining permission from Research Ethics Board in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR), Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Imphal. Results and Observations: A total of 54 patients were recruited. The mean age of patients were found to be 37 years. Males were affected more than the female and among them labour class of persons are more affected. Following intra-discal ozone therapy the reduction from baseline VAS score 70.28�12.45 at two weeks was to 36.30 � 15.18. The VAS scores improved to 22.80 � 11.22 and 13.88�5.96 respectively at the end of the 3 months and 6 months respectively. Improvement of (Japanese Orthopaedic Association) JOA score from baseline to two weeks following ONL was 11.63�5.18 to 19.65�4.74, whereas after 3 months and 6 months post ONL the scores were 21.69�3.88 and 24.79�3.27 respectively. There was significant improvement of VAS and JOA score in all 3 grades of disc prolapse. Conclusion: ONL is a new, minimally invasive procedure done under local anaesthesia. It has shown effective results in the treatment of interverteal disc herniation with minimal side effects