Radicular leg pain: deep or superficial pain causes worse function?

Abstract

Background: typically, patients with radicular pain due to lumbar disc herniation or stenosis will present with a shooting, lancinating or electric quality pain radiating below the knee. The pain is dermatomal and localized, “band-like”, whereas referred pain typically is a dull, deep ache or pressure like. Radicular leg pain (RLG) and referred pain are not mutually exclusive. They can co-exist. Failure to distinguish referred from radicular pain is still persisting pitfalls in everyday neurological practice. Superficial and deep pain determines different pain matrix activation and particular influence to function of the patient. Objective: the current study sought to identify clinical utility of RLP parameters and correlation with subjectively reported functional capacity. Methods: 196, 52 % male and 48 % female patients, mean age 44.6±11.6 year with radiologicaly identified specific degenerative spinal etiology of RLG and clinically confirmed lumbosacral radiculopathy participated in the study. 120 patients had acute (till 3 month) and 76 chronic (above 3 month) course of disease.We evaluated the intensity and pain quality in the leg using Neuropathic pain scale (NPS), disability due to leg pain with modified version of Roland-Moriss questionnaire (RMQ). [...].