Author’s reply

DEAR EDITOR

We would like to thank the authors for their interest in and constructive input for our article, “Are steroids required in the treatment of ganglion impar blockade in chronic coccydynia? A prospective double-blinded clinical trial” [1]. We appreciate the point raised by the authors that the reference in the abstract section to the steroids being ‘required’ may be misleading and it may be helpful to clarify that section to reflect our findings in respect of the use of local anesthetic with steroid (i.e., group SL) in comparison to the use of local anesthetics without steroid (i.e., group L). As the authors rightfully pointed out, it is correct that during the follow-up periods, in addition to group SL, group L also showed improvement in all parameters. However, compared to group L, we detected in group SL a significantly greater decrease in the NRS (Numeric Rating Scale) and Beck test scores in the 1st and 3rd months. We further observed, in our previously published study, that ganglion impar blockade using steroids has an efficacy lasting up to 21 months (rather than the median duration of 6 months) [2]. On the basis of our findings of significant improvements (as discussed above), we wanted to express in the abstract that it would be recommended to use steroids in order to achieve such results. Even though we may not have been able to articulate the entire analysis in that section due to the limited number of words, we hope that the discussions in our paper provide a clear analysis of the two approaches (i.e., local anesthetics with and without steroids). Further studies with a follow-up period of more than 3 months will clarify this issue.