Disclosures: Benjamin J. Burnham, DO: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest

Case Diagnosis: A 34 year-old female with chronic midline low back pain.

Case Description or Program Description: Upon initial evaluation, the patient had complaints of midline low back pain along with pain bilaterally attributed to her sacroiliac joints. Following interventions directed at her sacroiliac joints, the patient continued to have persistent midline lower back pain. Diagnostic interspinous ligament injections were done at the levels of L3-4 and L4-5, which provided significant relief. Cooled Radiofrequency Ablation was done 2 months later at those same levels. The patient had 100% pain relief of her midline low back pain at 1 week follow-up and has had no similar pain return since.

Setting: Tertiary healthcare system

Assessment/Results: The patient had 100% pain relief of her midline low back pain at 1 week follow-up and has had no similar pain return since.

Discussion (relevance): This is the first reported case, to our knowledge, of radiofrequency ablation being used to relieve midline low back pain not associated with Baastrup’s disease.

Conclusions: The interspinous ligaments of the spine are a potential underrecognized source of back pain. Interspinous radiofrequency ablation can be utilized for prolonged relief in selected patients who respond to interspinous diagnostic injections with adequate relief.

Level of Evidence: Level V

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PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/relief-of-midline-low-back-pain-by-interspinous-radiofrequency-ablation-a-case-report/