Manipulation Better Than Injection for Disk-Related Neck Pain

Investigators compared the outcomes (overall improvement, pain reduction, and treatment costs) of over one hundred patients with a symptomatic cervical disk herniation who were either treated with spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) or imaging-guided cervical nerve root injection blocks (CNRI). The results show improvement in 86% of the patients who received SMT versus improvement in only 49% of the patients who received injections. The findings support the use SMT over injections blocks to treat a symptomatic cervical disk herniation. Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, April 2016