As per a recent review in BMC Anesthesiology, a total of 17 published studies have reported the use of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) targeted pulsed radiofrequency (PRF) in non-neuropathic pain situations with positive information, but it is extremely important to take caution while elucidating these results as anything more than preliminary.

A systematic review was performed by Ivana Vuka and collegues, to analyse the safety and effectiveness of DRG targeted PRF against any comparator for non-neuropathic pain treatment.

The database search included exploring the Embase, MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO and WHO clinical trial register till January, 2019. Two reviewers conducted literature screening individually. Pain and serious adverse events were regarded as primary outcomes. The rest of pain-related outcome and any other safety outcome were regarded as secondary outcome. The Risk of Bias In Non-randomized Studies of Interventions (ROBINS-I) was used to determine the risk of bias.

Seventeen studies with 599 individuals with numerous pain syndromes were considered. Out of these, two studies were randomized controlled trials which had individuals with low back pain (LBP). The pain conditions like LBP, complex regional pain syndrome type 1, post-operative pain, secondary headache, migraine, prolonged scrotal and inguinal pain, occipital radiating pain in rheumatoid arthritis and migraine were part of the non-randomized studies. Normally, these studies had PRF introduced if other treatments were not successful. Eleven out of 17 studies had positive conclusive statements regarding efficacy; the rest had positive inconclusive statements. The conclusiveness of evidence statements concerning safety was provided in only 3 studies (2 positive conclusive, and 1 positive inconclusive).