Poster 157 Non‐Inferiority of Cooled Versus Traditional Radiofrequency Ablation of the Lumbar Medial Branch Nerves in the Treatment of Axial Low Back Pain

Cooled Versus Conventional Thermal Radiofrequency Neurotomy for the Treatment of Lumbar Facet–Mediated Pain

“…Alternately, in cooled RFN, after aligning the end plates, an oblique view of the SAP allows placement of the probe in a gun barrel technique along the inferior and medial border of the SAP. We recently completed a small retrospective study of 60 patients in our clinic (abstract accepted for presentation at the AAPM&R Annual Assembly in October 2015 [10]) comparing fluoroscopic times of these procedures and found that the fluoroscopic time of traditional RFN was significantly longer than that of cooled RFN. This discrepancy was most evident when 6 lesions were required: 196.2 seconds with traditional RFN versus 141.4 seconds with cooled RFN.…”