With “Sciatica-like syndrome” we intend a pathologic condition in which the patients feel pain, paresthesias and other symptoms of nervous origin along the territory of innervation of the sciatic nerve that are not of lumbar disc origin. There are in fact other pathological conditions which can create symptoms very similar to the sciatic pain due to disc pathology: for example, interapophyseal lumbar arthritis, sacroiliac joint inflammation, insertional tendinopathy of hamstring tendons, piriformis syndrome and other. The aim of our study is to evaluate the results...

From July 2009 to August 2013 we studied 2300 patients with chronic sciatic pain with MRI of the lumbar spine and pelvis: in 1461 patients the pain was due to a nerve compression by disc pathology. In the remaining patients, we identified a different origin for the pain: in 389 patients we diagnosed a interapophyseal lumbar arthritis; in 98 patients a sacroiliac joint inflammation; in 31 patients an insertional tendinopathy of hamstring tendons; in 12 patients, a piriformis syndrome; in 309 patients the cause of...

The mean VAS values after percutaneous CT-guided injection dropped overall by 80%, (from 8 to 1.6) and after PRP percutaneous injection by 70% (from 6 to 1.8) (Table 1). The MRI controls showed a reduction of reactive edema of the sacroiliac joints and of the piriformis muscle and a reduction also of the interapophyseal synovitis (Fig. 1-3). We observed also a recovery of morphological signal intensity in patients with insertional tendinosis of hamstring tendons with the disappearance of the inflammatory myofascial phenomenas (Fig. 4). No...

Our experience showed that in some cases is possible to identify as cause of sciatic pain, some pathologic conditions, different from the disc pathology, that can be treated succesfully by interventional radiology (CT and US guided). We recorded very good clinical results for a period of 6 months, but, the presence also of good imaging results can be interpreted as the possibility that this type of treatment ensures a pain relief for a longer period. The imaging improvement, in fact, indicates that the treatment is...

Francesco Arrigoni, MD Radiology Resident [email protected] University of L'Aquila S.Salvatore Hospital Via Vetoio 67010 L'Aquila

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