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Study: Antibiotics decreased pain scores in patients with chronic low back pain
Researchers from Denmark found patients with chronic low back pain and vertebral bone edema had good outcomes at 1-year follow-up after treatment with antibiotics for 100 days, according to this randomized, double-blinded trial.
“The antibiotic protocol in this study was significantly more effective for [the chronic low back pain] group of patients than placebo in all the primary and secondary outcomes,” researchers wrote in the study abstract.
The 144 patients in the study had chronic low back pain for more than 6 months after disc herniation and also had bone edema indicated by Modic type 1 changes in the adjacent vertebrae, according to the abstract. Patients were given either amoxicillin or placebo and were assessed at baseline, 100 days and 1 year.
Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ) scores significantly decreased in the study group for all outcome measures during all follow-up periods compared to the control group, according to the abstract. “For the outcome measures, where a clinically important effect size was defined, improvements exceeded the thresholds, and a trend towards a dose-response relationship with double dose antibiotics being more efficacious,” the authors wrote in their study.