Background: Pain is one of the most common symptoms in cancer patients, and celiac block has been introduced as an alternative for patients who are not satisfied with narcotic treatment. The present study aimed to compare the effects of radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and alcohol injection against alcohol injection alone on celiac ganglion block in patients with primary and metastatic malignancy involving the celiac ganglion.Method: In this randomized, single-blind clinical trial, primary and metastatic malignancy patients with unresponsive pain were investigated. Group A only received 90% alcohol bilaterally. Group B received RFA, and alcohol injection. Both methods were performed under computed tomography guidance. Then, patients were followed up for 6 months. All analyses were done with SPSS version 24 software. Spearman’s nonparametric rank, chi-square, and multivariate analysis were simultaneously used to analyze correlations, compare categorical variables, and analyze variables, respectively. A P-value 0.05). Finally, 90.48% of patients in both groups showed at least partial response.Conclusion: We showed that alcohol injection alone can be an appropriate technique for celiac ganglion block in patients with primary and metastatic malignancy involving celiac ganglion, with no significant difference between alcohol injection alone vs. RFA and alcohol injection.
Babaei et al. (Wed,) studied this question.