Physician-Delivered Injection Therapies for Mechanical Neck Disorders: A Systematic Review Update (Non-Oral, Non-Intravenous Pharmacological Interventions for Neck Pain)

Controversy persists regarding medicinal injections for mechanical neck disorders (MNDs).

To determine the effectiveness of physician-delivered injections on pain, function/disability, quality of life, global perceived effect and patient satisfaction for adults with MNDs.

We updated our previous searches of CENTRAL, MEDLINE and EMBASE from December 2006 through to March 2012.

We included randomized controlled trials of adults with neck disorders treated by physician-delivered injection therapies.

Two authors independently selected articles, abstracted data and assessed methodological quality. When clinical heterogeneity was absent, we combined studies using random-effects models.

We included 12 trials (667 participants). No high or moderate quality studies were found with evidence of benefit over control. Moderate quality evidence suggests little or no difference in pain or function/disability between nerve block injection of steroid and bupivacaine vs bupivacaine alone at short, intermediate and long-term for chronic neck pain. We found limited very low quality evidence of an effect on pain with intramuscular lidocaine vs control for chronic myofascial neck pain. Two low quality studies showed an effect on pain with anaesthetic nerve block vs saline immediately post treatment and in the short-term. All other studies were of low or very low quality with no evidence of benefit over controls.

Current evidence does not confirm the effectiveness of IM-lidocaine injection for chronic mechanical neck pain nor anaesthetic nerve block for cervicogenic headache. There is moderate evidence of no benefit for steroid blocks vs controls for mechanical neck pain.