Alexander P. Hersel, MD, medical director of Pain Management and Injury Relief Medical Center, recently released an article ensuring patients that epidural steroid injections are still a safe treatment despite the recent outbreak of meningitis tied to the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass.

Five pain management physicians discuss epidural steroid injections for pain treatment.

Researchers at the Rothman Institute and Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, found epidural steroid injections do not improve health or avoid surgery in the long term for patients with back pain, according to a Thomas Jefferson University news release.

A modified interlaminar lumbar epidural steroid injection approach, known as the parasagittal approach, is more effective at reducing unilateral lumbosacral radicular back pain and is safer than the traditional approach, according to a Medscape Medical News report.

New research from Johns Hopkins University found routine MRI imaging does not improve treatment and does not play a role in a physician's decision to give epidural steroid injections, the most common procedure performed at pain clinics in the U.S., according to a university news release.