Saturday, December 29, 2012

Spinal steroid shots may have little effect on sciatica | Synopsis

Spinal steroid shots may have little effect on sciatica

A Hill of a Climb Time Trial
A Hill of a Climb Time Trial by Team Traveller
License (according to Flickr): Attribution License
Excerpt:

Despite the growing popularity of steroid injections to treat various kinds of back pain in recent years, a new review of past research finds the shots do little to alleviate sciatica, a common condition that causes leg and back pain. Analyzing results from nearly two dozen clinical trials on thousands of patients, Australian researchers found that epidural injections (into the spine) of corticosteroids had no long- or short-term effect on sciatica back pain, and such a small short-term effect on leg pain it would make no difference to the patient. "I think it's pretty clear that this treatment is not good to do," said Chris Maher, of The George Institute for Global Health in Sydney, Australia, who worked on the study.

People:

Chris Maher

Overall Sentiment: 0.178436

Relevance: 0.659532

SentimentQuote
-0.110533"I think it's pretty clear that this treatment is not good to do," said Chris Maher, ...
0"We really think the question is closed," said Maher.
0"We really think the question is closed," said Maher. "So in terms of our research agenda, we're moving on to other treatments for sciatica."
-0.0111139"If this was a treatment that worked, then you'd have to weigh the benefits and the harm," Maher said, ...
0"It's been around for decades and it will take a while to stop," he said. ...
Sentiment Stats:
  • Number of Quotes: 5
  • Aggregate Sentiment: -0.1216469
  • Mean: -0.02432938
  • Standard Deviation: 1.4142135623731
Disambiguation: References:

Dr. Kirkham B. Wood

Overall Sentiment: -0.277439

Relevance: 0.194272

SentimentQuote
0"In general, I think we've learned over the years that the epidural injections are turning out to be less and less successful… but there are times when they should be considered," said Dr. Kirkham B. Wood, ...
-0.485893"I think the pendulum is certainly swinging away from their broad use," he said. ...
Sentiment Stats:
  • Number of Quotes: 2
  • Aggregate Sentiment: -0.485893
  • Mean: -0.2429465
  • Standard Deviation: 1.7320508075689

Key:

  • Aggregate Sentiment is meant to be an indicator of an individual's overall sentiment.
  • The Mean is meant to be an indicator of an individual's average comment sentiment.
  • The Standard Deviation, when there are enough quotes, will indicate an individual's consistency of sentiment (i.e. a Standard Deviation of 0 would mean they were very consistent in their sentiment and 1 would mean they were very inconsistent).

Note that quote stats are likely to be meaningless beyond the aggregate score due to the tiny sample size. However, they are always provided just in case you find something useful there.

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