Eplerenone as a Supplement to Epidural Steroid Injections
Status:
Suspended
Trial end date:
2023-12-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Low back pain is a leading cause of disability and health care costs in the United States,
and treatments are ineffective for many patients. Epidural steroid injections are a common
treatment, but their efficacy has been questioned and for many patients they do not provide
complete relief. The investigators hypothesize, based on preclinical studies, that lack of
complete efficacy may be due to the fact that clinically used steroids activate not only the
intended drug target, the glucocorticoid receptor, but also the pro-inflammatory
mineralocorticoid receptor. To test this hypothesis, this pilot study will recruit patients
scheduled for lumbar epidural steroid injections for degenerative disc disease, and randomize
them to receive a concurrent treatment with oral eplerenone (a clinically approved antagonist
of the mineralocorticoid receptor) or placebo for 10 days starting just after the epidural
injection. At several time points during the following year, subjects will answer the
Oswestry Low Back Pain Questionnaire, to report on both pain and functional outcomes.