Transforaminal Cervical Blood Patch for the Treatment of Post–Dural Puncture Headache

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Slipman CW, El Abd OH, Bhargava A, DePalma MJ, Chin KR: Transforaminal cervical blood patch for the treatment of post–dural puncture headache. Am J Phys Med Rehabil 2005;84:76–80. A 40-yr-old woman received a series of three interlaminar epidural steroid injections for the treatment of axial neck pain secondary to degenerative disc disease. Immediately after her third injection, she experienced symptoms of a dural puncture–induced headache. This headache persisted on a daily basis for 3 mos, despite two epidural blood patches using an interlaminar approach, which was finally completely abated with a transforaminal blood patch. The headache was immediately relieved and remained alleviated through the follow-up interval of 1 yr. In this patient, a fluoroscopically guided transforaminal epidural blood patch proved to be more effective than the classic blind interlaminar approach in the treatment of post–dural puncture headache.