Abstract

Introduction: The efficacy of radiofrequency thermocoagulation (RFT) of ganglion impar in patients with chronic coccydynia was analyzed. Material and Methods : We retrospectively evaluated the collected data of 10 patients with chronic coccydynia (pain > 6 months) who were treated by RFT of ganglion impar between October 2008 and May 2009. Visual Numeric Pain Scale (VNS) and descriptive system of health-related quality of life states (EQ5D) were used for patient assessment besides the physical and radiological examinations. All outcome measures were repeated at post procedure, 1 month and 6 months after the procedure.Results : The mean age of the patients was 49.2 ± 14.4 (range 27-77). Among them, 8 were female (80 %) and 2 were men (20 %). Average follow-up was 9.1 ± 1.2 months. Statistically significant differences were observed between the pre-procedure and post-procedure VNSs (< 0.01). Overall patient satisfaction was all successful in the short term. Midterm evaluation in post treatment (6 months) revealed that 90 % of the patients had successful outcome and 10 % were deemed failures.Conclusion : Our data suggest that RFT destruction of ganglion impar in patients with chronic coccydynia has effective outcome and patients responding to RFT have significantly lower post-RFT pain scores in midterm follow up.