Outcomes of Patients Receiving Long-Term Corticosteroid Therapy Who Undergo Percutaneous Vertebroplasty

American Journal of Neuroradiology

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Fig 1.
Improvement in pain after vertebroplasty. Patients were asked to rate their pain on a 0–10 Likert scale preoperatively and at the follow-up times indicated at rest (A) and with activity (B). Data are depicted as the mean ± SD improvement in pain from baseline.

Table 1:

Patient demographics

	Control Subjects	Steroid Users	P
Patients (n)	379	68
Sex (M:F)	5:14	2:3	.01
Age, years (range)	77 (28–96)	68 (31–88)	<.0001
Duration of pain (months)	2 (0.1–60)	2 (0.03–15)	.30
No. of vertebral levels treated	475	79
Sedation			.03
Conscious	408 (85.9%)	58 (73.4%)
Deep sedation	12 (2.5%)	5 (6.3%)
General anesthesia	55 (11.6%)	16 (20.3%)
Total vertebral levels treated/patient	1 (1–11)	2 (1–5)	.009
Major complications	13 (3.4%)	3 (4.4%)	.60
Rib fracture	4	0
Radiculopathy	3	2
Hypertensive episode	2	0
Respiratory arrest	2	0
Transverse process fracture	0	1
PMMA pulmonary embolus	1	0
Urinary retention	1	0
New fractures	110 (29.0%)	20 (29.4%)	.68

Table 2:

Patient steroid use and indications

Type of steroid
Prednisone	77 (97.5%)
Methylprednisolone	2 (2.5%)
Steroid use at time of vertebroplasty
Yes	68 (86.1%)
No	11 (13.9%)
Dose (mg/day of prednisone equivalents)	10 (2–60)
Duration of treatment (months)	43.5 (2–420)
Indication for steroid use^*
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease	23
Rheumatoid arthritis	20
Organ transplant	11
Polymyalgia rheumatica	6
Idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura	5
Sarcoidosis	4
Vasculitis	4
Systemic lupus erythematosus	3
Asthma	2
Myasthenia gravis	2
Other	11