Evolution of interventional techniques

Regional anesthesia techniques are used in pain treatment for more than a century. Although its use for acute pain conditions, such as intraoperative, postoperative and traumatic pain, is very well accepted, its use for the chronic pain syndromes is still lacking a consensus among the practitioners. The interventional techniques, which are mostly originated from the regional anesthetic techniques, have gained an increasing interest for the treatment of chronic pain syndromes during the last few decades. In this review, the development and clinical aspects of epidural injections, epiduroscopy, facet denervaion, intradiscal applications, vertebroplasty, sympathetic neurolysis, and central and peripheral continuous infusion techniques are discussed.