Inclusion criteria
To be included in the study, patients should have PDPH longer than 24 hours and not longer than 7 days after a diagnostic spinal tap. Furthermore patients should be aged 18 years or older. Written informed consent is required.
Exclusion criteria
Excluded are patients with relative contra-indications for lumbar puncture: hemorrhagic diathesis and space-occupying intracranial lesions, and patients with a body temperature over 38° Celsius.
Design
This is an observer-blind prospective, controlled and randomised parallel group study.
Active treatment
Patients allocated to active treatment will receive an EDBP on the day of randomisation. The subject is placed in the lateral position, after which the back is flexed, sterilised and draped. Sterile gloves are used. A needle (Spinocan canule: 0.9 × 88 mm/206 × 3.5) is placed in the epidural space, using the loss of resistance technique. Subsequently, 20 cc of blood is than drawn from the antecubital vein, and injected slowly into the epidural space, after which the needle is removed. The subject is held in the supine position for a few minutes, after which there are no further restrictions.
Control treatment
Conservative treatment consists of the advice to take 24 hours bed rest and drink at least 2.0 litres of fluid a day. The use of painkillers is not prohibited. Treatment with EDBP is not an option during the study period of 7 days, not even when conservative treatment fails.
Outcomes
The primary outcome is whether or not headache is present at 24 hours after the start of treatment. Headache is classified on a 4-point scale (no, mild, moderate, severe). Mild headache is defined as: postural headache slightly restricting daily activities. The patient is not confined to bed and there are no associated symptoms. Moderate headache: postural headache confining the patient to bed for part of the day. Associated symptoms are not necessarily present. Severe headache: postural headache where the patient is bedridden for the entire day and associated symptoms are always present. The associated symptoms are: nausea, vomiting, dizziness, hearing loss, hyperacusis, tinitus, photophobia, diplopia, stiffness of the neck and scapular pain [2].
Secondary outcome measures are the presence of headache at day seven after the start of treatment, and the number of days until headache subsides.
Treatment complications
A systematic assessment of complications of EDBP will be carried out. Back pain will be assessed systematically, and classified as no, mild moderate, severe.
Statistical analysis
The number of patients with headache at 24 hours after start of treatment will be compared between the two treatment strategies. The effect of treatment on the occurrence of the headache will be expressed as an odds ratio with 95% confidence interval. Adjustment for the effect of potential confounders, such as age and sex, will be made by multiple logistic regression analysis. The number of days until headache relief will be compared with Kaplan-Meier survival analysis techniques; observations will be censored at the end of the study period, i.e. 7 days. Adjustments for the effect of potential confounders will be made with proportional hazards regression [22].
Sample size
A trial with 20 patients in each treatment group will provide us with a power (1-β) of 80% to detect a relative reduction in number of patients with persisting PDPH after 24 hours of 50% (OR = 12) and a power of 99% to detect a relative risk reduction of 80%, (OR = 81, at the usual significance level α = 5%, taking into account that in approximately 10% of the patients the PDPH will have resolved spontaneously after one day.
Recruitment of eligible patients
Patients receiving a diagnostic dural puncture are informed about the possibility of developing PDPH. They all receive written information about the study. A subject suffering from headache after a dural puncture will be advised to contact his physician. The physician evaluates whether the headache is a PDPH or not. When the conclusion is that the subject is suffering from PDPH, he or she is asked to participate. Randomisation is done by a telephone call, by the investigator.
Randomisation procedure
The randomisation procedure is carried out by one of the investigators (RO or FvK). During the telephone contact, while the patient is entered into the computer database the treatment allocation (based on a random number generator) is provided by the computer. The patient cannot be entered twice into the study, nor can the entry be erased.
Ethical considerations and informed consent
The local medical ethics committee and review board approved this study. Written informed consent will be obtained from all patients, by asking them to return the form by mail or in person, after the randomisation by telephone.
Baseline data
At baseline, patient demographics age and gender will be registered. Both have been proven to be independent risk factors for the development of PDPH. Clinical characteristics, such as headache characteristics, other complaints, and use of analgesics will be noted. Information concerning needle type, size and re-insertment of the stylet before withdrawing is registered, since all three factors are independent risk factors for the development of PDPH [3–5]. Furthermore the severity of the PDPH is registered on a four-point scale.
Follow-up and blinding
The follow-up visits are carried out by telephone, by a research nurse at the trial office, 24 hours after randomisation, and at 1 week after randomisation. The research nurse is kept blind to the treatment allocation. At the beginning of the telephone interview the patients are instructed not to inform the observer of the treatment they received. The effectiveness of the blinding will be checked in a sample of 12 patients, by letting the research nurse fill in a forced choice item indicating the treatment allocation.
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