Efficacy of intradermal administration of diclofenac for the treatment of nonspecific chronic low back pain: results from a retrospective observational study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Intradermal administration of analgesic drugs with mesotherapy is effective for the local treatment of musculoskeletal pain. Few studies analyzed the effects of different drugs administrated with this technique. AIM: The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of diclofenac versus lysine acetylsalicylate-based mesotherapy in relieving pain (primary outcome), and disability (secondary outcome) in patients with nonspecific chronic low back pain. DESIGN: Retrospective observational study. SETTING: Outpatient rehabilitation medicine center. POPULATION: Records of 101 patients with nonspecific chronic low back pain. METHODS: Data were extracted from the outpatients records of patients affected by nonspecific chronic low back pain since 12 weeks before, treated with 5 sessions of mesotherapy with diclofenac mixtures (group A) or aspirin-lysine acetylsalicylate mixture (group B). Assessments recorded were taken before the first treatment (T0), at the end of the 5-week treatment (T1), and at 4 (T2) and 12 weeks (T3) of follow-up after the last treatment, using a pain visual analogue scale (VAS) primary outcome, Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) secondary outcome, and the Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ) Comparisons within and between groups were performed using the t-test, the χ2 test, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) models, as appropriate. RESULTS: Records from 101 patients consecutively were analyzed, 51 in group A (mean age and standard deviation [SD]=62.8±10.7; F/M=33/18) and 50 in group B (mean age±SD=64.1±15.8; F/M=30/20). At baseline VAS, SF-MPQ, ODI scores were respectively 7.6±1.3, 22.49±9.96, 44.80±15.55 (mean and SD) in group A; VAS, SF-MPQ, ODI scores were respectively 6.7±1.6, 18.66±9.65, 39.04±16.06 (mean and SD) in group B. Mean differences between group A and group B in the changes of scores from baseline (T0) to end of study (T3) were -1.3 (VAS), -5.81 (SF-MPQ) and -17.05 (ODI). Mesotherapy induced significant reductions in pain severity and disability in both groups with better results in diclofenac-based treatment. CONCLUSIONS: This retrospective pilot study suggests the efficacy and safety of diclofenac mesotherapy for relieving pain and disability in patients affected by chronic nonspecific low back pain in a convenient sample but further studies will confirm these results. CLINICAL REHABILITATION IMPACT: Diclofenac mesotherapy appears to be a viable treatment. to reduce pain and improve function in patients affected by chronic moderate-to-severe nonspecific low back pain.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".