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Fellowships - Xiaoqin Wang
Xiaoqin Wang, MD Postdoctoral Fellow
Project Title: Interventional Treatments for Chronic, Local or Radicular, Non-Cancer, Spinal Pain: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis of Randomized Trials
Supervisor: Dr. Jason Busse
Brief Overview and Progress to Date
Chronic axial pain is common in Canada, and interventional pain medicine (IPM) procedures (e.g. trigger point injections) are commonly used. Given escalating use, and the associated costs, government payers are becoming increasingly concerned about the value of these services. Specifically, despite limited evidence of effectiveness, unpublished data from Health Quality Ontario (HQO) using Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) billing data indicate that the use of some IPM procedures have more than doubled from 2011 to 2015, primarily by an increase in the number of procedures without much increase in the number of patients.
Several conventional systematic reviews have explored the effectiveness of interventional procedures for chronic noncancer spine pain; however, all have important methodological limitations. We conducted a systematic review and NMA of randomized trials to assess the comparative effectiveness of interventional procedures for chronic noncancer spine-related pain that addresses these limitations.
This review is part of the BMJ Rapid Recommendations project, a collaborative effort from the MAGIC Evidence Ecosystem Foundation (www. magicevidnece.org) and the BMJ. This systematic review informed a parallel guideline published on bmj.com and MAGICapp.
