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Rate ePoster

Pain and Spine Medicine

The Impact of Smoking on the Effectiveness of Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA) for Management of Cervical and Lumbar Spondylosis Related Neck and Low Back Pain

Saturday, October 25, 2025
8:00 AM - 9:15 AM MT
Location: Kiosk 10

    Poster Presenter(s)

  • Lauren B. Mills

    Student
    Oberlin College
    St. Louis, Missouri

    • Co-Author(s)

  • AS

    Ali Shakir, MD

    Spine & Sports Physiatrist
    Ohio Rehabilitation Center II
    Hudson, Ohio

  • Zeinab Mohamed, PhD

    Assistant professor of Statistics and Data Science
    Oberlin College
    Avon Lake, Ohio

Disclosure(s):
Lauren B. Mills: No financial relationships to disclose
Ali Shakir, MD: No financial relationships to disclose
Zeinab Mohamed, PhD: No financial relationships to disclose
Background and/or Objectives: This study aimed to determine whether smoking impacts the therapeutic response to cervical and lumbar facet joint radiofrequency ablation (RFA).

Design: Retrospective cohort study of participants from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2024. Bayesian analysis performed across cervical and lumbar RFA groups to determine statistical significance between self-reported pain scores of smokers and non-smokers in the one-month following procedure.

Setting : Community-based outpatient physical medicine and rehabilitation clinic.

Participants : A total of 267 participants split into Lumbar RFA n=172 (Smokers: 38, Non-smokers: 134) and Cervical RFA n= 95 (Smokers: 19, Non-smokers: 76)

Interventions: N/A

Main Outcome Measures: Change in self-reported numerical pain score from pre-RFA to one month post-RFA.

Results: For Lumbar RFA, smokers had a mean pre-procedural pain score of 7.26 (SD=1.29) with a mean reduction in pain score of 4.58 (SD=1.75) post-RFA. Non-smokers had a mean pre-procedure score of 6.83(SD=1.54) with a mean reduction in pain score of 4.51(SD=1.71) post-RFA. The Bayesian regression model estimated the effect of smoking status on pain reduction as 0.06 with 95% CI:(-0.52, 0.30), and posterior estimate of sigma (σ = 1.72, 95% CI: 1.55 to 1.91). For Cervical RFA, smokers had a mean pre-procedural pain score of 7.00 (SD=1.63) with a mean reduction in pain score of 3.95(SD.165) post-RFA. Non-smokers had a mean pre-procedure pain score of 6.59 (SD=1.55) with a mean reduction in pain score of 3.89(SD=1.62) post-RFA. The Bayesian regression model estimated the effect of smoking status on pain reduction as 0.02 with a 95% CI: (-0.71, 0.76), and posterior estimate of sigma (σ = 1.62, 95% CI: 1.41 to 1.86).

Conclusions: Our Bayesian analysis indicates that smoking does not significantly impact pain reduction following both lumbar and cervical facet joint radiofrequency denervation.