Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Randomised controlled trial
Benzodiazepines provide no additional benefit over physiotherapy and analgesia in acute lumbar disc prolapse
  1. Antonio Memeo1,
  2. Leopoldo Pedretti2
  1. 1Istituto Ortopedico Gaetano Pini, Milan, Italy
  2. 2Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, Università degli Studi of Milan, Milan, Italy
  1. Correspondence to Leopoldo Pedretti
    Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, Università degli Studi of Milan, viale Gorizia 6, 20100 Milan, Italy; leopoldo.pedretti{at}hotmail.it

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Commentary on:

Context

The aim of this article is to analyse if there is a role for benzodiazepines in the treatment of lumbar disc prolapse with acute sciatica in patients who are not candidates for surgery and would usually be treated with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents plus physiotherapy.

Methods

This study is a prospective, randomised, double-blind clinical trial. Sixty patients (26 women, 34 males, median age of 42 years) were divided into an intervention and control group between August 2002 and March 2006. The control group were treated with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents plus physiotherapy (plus placebo) while the intervention group received the same therapy plus diazepam (2–5 mg). Inclusion criteria included: patients between ages 18 and 75 years, sciatica with or without neurological …

View Full Text

Footnotes

  • Competing interests None.