Greater occipital nerve blockade for the treatment of XXXX : a randomized, multicenter, double-blind, and placebo-controlled study.

@entity1 @entity2704 @entity10 @entity158
OBJECTIVES: We aimed to assess the efficacy of greater occipital nerve (GON) blockade at @entity2704 ( @entity2704 ) treatment. MATERIALS AND METHODS: @entity1 with @entity2704 were randomly divided into two groups of 42. GON blockade was administered four times (once per week) with saline in group A or bupivacaine in group B. After 4  weeks of treatment, blinding was removed; in group A, GON blockade was achieved using bupivacaine, while group B continued to receive bupivacaine, and blockade was administered once per month, then followed for 2  months. Primary endpoint was the difference in number of @entity10 days, duration of @entity10 , and @entity158 scores. RESULTS: Seventy-two of 84 @entity1 completed the study. After 1  month of treatment, number of @entity10 days had decreased from 16.9      5.7 to 13.2      6.7 in group A (P  =  0.035) and from 18.1      5.3 to 8.8      4.8 in group B (P  <  0.001), (P  =  0.004, between groups); duration of @entity10 (hour) had decreased from 24.2      13.7 to 21.2      13.4 in group A (P  =  0.223) and from 25.9      16.3 to 19.3      11.5 in group B (P  <  0.001), (P  =  0.767, between groups). VAS score decreased from 8.1      0.9 to 6.7      1.6 in group A (P  =  0.002) and from 8.4      1.5 to 5.3      2.1 in group B (P  <  0.001), (P  =  0.004, between groups). After blinding was removed (in 2nd and 3rd month), group A exhibited similar results like group B in 3rd month. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that GON blockade with bupivacaine was superior to placebo and was found to be effective, safe, and cost-effective for the treatment of @entity2704 . According to our knowledge, this is the first randomized, multicentre, double-blind, and placebo-controlled study in the literature in this field of work.
