Disorders: Piriformis Syndrome
In the United States each year, 1.5 million people have lumbar MRI scans to look for the cause of the buttock and leg pain called "sciatica." More than 1.2 million of those scans fail to find the cause in the spine. Three hundred thousand of the scans are sufficiently positive that the patient has lumbar spine surgery. Of the 300,000 surgeries, as many as 25% fail to relieve the pain - in many cases this is because the diagnosis of a spinal cause for the sciatica was incorrect.
Piriformis syndrome also causes sciatica. Its treatment is much less invasive and severe than the treatment of herniated lumbar disks. However, many doctors never consider piriformis syndrome as a possible diagnosis. Many physicians who are aware of it are uncertain how to properly diagnose and treat it.
The advent of MR Neurography and Open MR injection techniques together with new large scale outcome studies are now leading to the successful diagnosis and treatment of many more sciatica sufferers.