Retrospective evaluation of quality of life in patients undergoing sacroiliac joint denervation with simplicity

The sacroiliac joint (SIJ) is the third most common cause of low back pain. The treatment of SIJ-induced pain is often conservative. When conservative treatments fail, interventional treatment methods, such as intra-articular injection or radiofrequency (RF) denervation are applied. Recently, in addition to the success of this interventional treatment applied, increased patient satisfaction and quality of life after treatment have also gained importance. The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate pain management and improvement in the quality of life in patients with SIJ pain who underwent RF denervation with the simplicity probe.

The files of patients with SIJ degeneration on Ferguson X-ray, who underwent diagnostic intra-articular block for SIJ and had more than 50% reduction in pain were screened, and 38 cases in which simplicity RF neurotomy was applied were identified. The age, sex, and numerical rating scale (NRS) and short form (SF)-36 scores of the remaining 30 patients were recorded before and at 6 months after the procedure.

There was a statistically significant decrease in NRS between the pre-procedure and post-procedure (6-month) values. The decrease in NRS did not significantly differ according to sex. A statistically significant improvement in all the domains of SF-36 in the post-procedure period compared to the pre-procedure period. There was no significant sex-related difference in the improvement of the SF-36 domains, except for the emotional role functioning domain, for which the scores were significantly higher in women than in men.

In patients with SIJ pain who positively respond to steroid injection, the application of Simplicity III achieves long-term pain management and increases patient comfort and satisfaction pain without any complications.