Minimally Invasive Oxygen/Ozone Shot Set to Replace Surgery for Pain of Herniate

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Minimally Invasive Oxygen/Ozone Shot Set to Replace Surgery for Pain of

Herniated Disks

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**The estimated improvement in pain and function is impressive when we

looked at [more than 8,000] patients who ranged in age from 13 to 94 years with

all types of disk herniations.**

 

A minimally invasive treatment - which safely and effectively uses injection

of oxygen/ozone to relieve the pain of herniated disks - will become

standard in the United States in the next few years, researchers explained at

the

Society of Interventional Radiology’s 34th Annual Scientific Meeting. In a

recent study,(1) the interventional radiologists examined just how ozone

relieves

the pain associated with herniated disks.

 

Back pain is the most common cause of job-related disability and a leading

contributor to missed work. While the pain of herniated disks can be severe,

it can ease over time, and many people may no longer feel the need for medical

care. However, in some, the pain from herniated (or ruptured or slipped)

disks is intolerable or persists.

 

**Having a herniated disk can affect how you perform everyday activities and

can cause severe pain that influences almost everything you do; but you

don*t have to undergo invasive surgery,** noted Kieran J. Murphy, MD, an

interventional neuroradiologist and chief of medical imaging at the University

of

Toronto, Canada.

 

Oxygen/ozone therapy involves injecting a gas mixture of oxygen and ozone

into a herniated disk. The treatment can limit pain and inflammation by

reducing the disk’s volume.

 

Currently, open diskectomy and microdiskectomy (both involving removal of

disk material through an incision) are the standards in surgical treatment for

herniated disk. **Oxygen/ozone treatment of herniated disks is an effective

and extremely safe procedure; interventional radiologists use imaging to guide

a needle to inject oxygen/ozone into injured disks,** explained Murphy.

 

**The estimated improvement in pain and function is impressive when we

looked at patients who ranged in age from 13 to 94 years with all types of disk

herniations,†he adds. “Equally important, pain and function outcomes are

similar to the outcomes for lumbar disks treated with surgical diskectomy, but

the complication rate is much less (less than 0.1 percent).**

 

**In addition, the recovery time is significantly shorter for the

oxygen/ozone injection than for the diskectomy,** said Murphy.

 

**The spine is a stunningly beautiful piece of engineering, or, as our

engineers say, the spine is like a complex electromechanical system. And the

interventional radiology oxygen/ozone treatment takes a minimalist approach.

It’s

all about being gentle,** said Murphy.

 

**Ozone shrinks disk volume; this is why it provides pain relief,** said

Murphy, whose second study explored the mechanism of why oxygen/ozone treatment

works. The bones (vertebrae) that form the spine in the back are cushioned by

small, spongy disks. When these disks are healthy, they act as shock

absorbers for the spine and keep the spine flexible. But when a disk is

damaged, it

may bulge or break open.

 

Surgical diskectomy risks leaving the patient with too little disk.

 

**There are millions of people with back pain who suffer and who can*t work

because of their pain. Undergoing invasive surgical diskectomy puts you on a

path where you may be left with too little disk. Taking out a protruding disk

may lose the shock absorption that naturally resides between them in the

spine,** said Murphy, who predicts this procedure will become standard in the

United States within the next five years.

 

Researchers conducted a meta-analysis of various results published for

oxygen/ozone treatment in regards to pain relief, reduction of disability and

risk

of complications.(2) More than 8,000 patients from multiple centers in

multiple locations were included in the study.

 

• The estimated mean improvement for patients after treatment based on the

10-point visual analog scale (VAS), a standard tool for rating the disabling

effects of back pain, was a change of 3.9 (with 0 being no pain and 10

representing worst pain experienced).

 

• The estimated mean improvement was 25.7 percent for the Oswestry

Disability Index (ODI), which measures one*s ability to manage everyday life -

such as

washing, dressing or standing (with 61 percent or higher representing back

pain that has an impact on all aspects of daily living.

 

The improvement scores for VAS and ODI outcomes are well above both the

minimum clinically important difference and the minimum (statistically

significant) detectable change, indicating that the improvement in pain and

function is

a real change that can be felt by the patient.

 

Much research in oxygen/ozone treatments has been done by interventional

radiologists in Italy, said Murphy, indicating that as many as 14,000

individuals have received this treatment abroad over the past five years.

 

The mechanism of action in relieving low back pain is complex; however, the

primary effect is a volume reduction due to ozone oxidation. Researchers

discovered that a simple incompressible fluid model predicted that reducing

disk

volume by 0.6 percent results in an intradiscal pressure reduction of 1 psi

(1 pound per square inch).

 

Thus a very small change in volume creates a large change in disc pressure,

which reduces the applied pressure on the nerve and relieves pain.

 

This model confirmed that a minimalistic alternative to a diskectomy, such

as oxygen/ozone treatment, is capable of relieving the pain caused by a

herniated disk without causing irreparable damage.

____

 

Article Citations:

 

1. **Ozone’s Mechanisms of Action for Relieving Pain Associated with

Herniated Intervertebral Disks,** Abstract No. 38, Journal of the Society of

Interventional Radiology (supplement), Feb 2009.

 

2. **A Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness and Safety of Ozone Treatments for

Herniated Lumbar Disks,** Abstract No. 37, Journal of the Society of

Interventional Radiology (supplement), Feb 2009.

 

Source: Society of Interventional Radiology (_www.sirweb.org_

(http://www.sirweb.org) ) news release, Mar 9, 2009

 

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