A team of researchers in a recently conducted study found that a common treatment for back pain which includes epidural corticosteroid injections has limited benefits. The study also showed that these steroid injections could prove to be beneficial in short term.

The new research published on Tuesday, August 25, in the Annals of Internal Medicine, is specifically based on a review of 38 placebo-controlled studies.

According to reports, steroid injections are mostly used to get relief of pain from spinal and radiculopathy stenosis.

Dr. Roger Chou, a medicine professor at Oregon Health & Science University, along with his team of researchers reviewed eight trails including spinal stenosis and 30 studies previous involving radiculopathy.

The team found that pain gradually subsided and functions were restored back to normal by a functional amount within few weeks of receiving epidural corticosteroid treatment. However, they find that the results appeared to be null within three months' time.

As per experts, the corticosteroid treatments can reduce the need for surgery, but scientists during the study observed that the benefits of it disappeared within three months.

According to Dr. Chou, "We don't have good evidence on treatments in general, and when that's the case, people kind of turn to what is done, and these are therapies that have been administered for at least 30 or 40 years or longer".

Furthermore, he mentioned that these therapies have been prevalent for approximately 30 or 40 years. He said in an explanation that his research team's findings are significant because previous reviews of the steroid injections treatment for lower back pain only looked at continuous outcomes and didn't take into consideration placebo techniques.