13/06/2025
Ozone therapy in FBSS
Low back pain is one of the painful disorders of higher prevalence. It has several etiologies and surgery may be indicated in the presence of neurological deficits or compression syndromes. In spite of the progress in surgical techniques and feasibility, these surgeries failed to satisfy a considerable group of patients, and therefore FBSS is inevitable; its incidence is 12–40%.
FBSS is defined as “spinal lower back pain of unknown origin that persists at the same site of the original pain despite surgical interventions, or appears after the procedure.”. The symptoms include persistent or recurring low back and/or leg pain.
Possible organic causes of FBSS include: epidural fibrosis; arachnoiditis; mechanical factors; inflammation-induced changes in the nerve roots; structural changes in the vertebral column; and lumbar degenerative disease.
Treatments for FBSS include medical treatment, physical therapy, acupuncture, intra-articular joint steroid injections, epidural adhesiolysis, radiofrequency ablation, spinal cord stimulation. Ultimately, a pack of these patients (13.4% to 35%), undergo revision surgeries; however, the success rates have been found to be lower than first operations.
In the last three decades, the application of ozone has emerged as a potential therapeutic option for patients with FBSS due to its analgesic, anti-inflammatory and fibrinolytic properties. Ozone therapy has proved to be safe and effective to treat lumbar disc herniation; its cost is low and it is a minimally invasive procedure, which yields a new therapeutic option for the FBSS’s patients.
