Erector spinae plane block for low back pain in failed back surgery syndrome: a case report

Hidemasa Takahashi; Takeo Suzuki

doi:10.1186/s40981-018-0198-6

Erector spinae plane block for low back pain in failed back surgery syndrome: a case report

JA Clin Rep. 2018 Aug 27;4(1):60. doi: 10.1186/s40981-018-0198-6.

Authors

Hidemasa Takahashi¹, Takeo Suzuki²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Anesthesiology, Tokyo Metropolitan Bokutoh Hospital, 4-23-15, Koto-bashi, Sumida-ku, Tokyo, 130-8575, Japan. bokutouma@gmail.com.
² Department of Anesthesiology, Tokyo Metropolitan Bokutoh Hospital, 4-23-15, Koto-bashi, Sumida-ku, Tokyo, 130-8575, Japan.

Abstract

Background: Patients with failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) experience chronic back pain following spinal surgery, and effective treatment is difficult because of multiple contributing factors.

Case presentation: Here we report a case involving a 72-year-old woman who experienced recurrent low back pain after undergoing two back surgeries. She was treated with erector spinae plane (ESP) block, which affected the dorsal rami of the spinal nerves from T12 to L5. Pain relief lasted for approximately 10 h after the initial block, and successful low back pain relief was achieved after a total of three trials.

Conclusions: ESP block, which is an easy and safe procedure, can be used to treat FBSS-associated low back pain.

Keywords: Failed back surgery syndrome; Low back pain; Nerve block; Paraspinal muscles; Ultrasound.