Safety outcomes and improvement in pain scores after radiologist-performed fluoroscopy-guided interlaminar cervical epidural steroid injection

Image-guided spine injections are an important tool in the management of patients with a variety of spinal pathologies. Our practice offers radiologist-performed fluoroscopy-guided interlaminar cervical epidural steroid injection (ESI) routinely performed in the outpatient setting. The purpose of this study was to evaluate clinical outcomes and improvement in pain scores after radiologist-performed cervical ESI. An institutional database was used to retrospectively identify cervical injections performed between October 2016 and October 2022. All injections were performed at the C7-T1 level utilizing 1.0 mL of 10 mg/mL dexamethasone without epidural anesthetic. The Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) was used to assess pain improvement. Cervical MRI was reviewed to assess pre-injection cervical disease severity. Patient charts were reviewed for any post-injection complications. A total of 251 cervical injections in 186 patients met our inclusion criteria with mean clinical follow up of 28.5 months (range 0.2 – 73.0 months). No patients experienced any major complications after injection. Post-injection pain scores were available for 218 of 251 injections (86.9