Postpartum posterior
pelvic girdle pain (
PPGP) affects nearly 20 % of women who experience
back pain in the peripartum period. The sacroiliac joint is a source of this
pain in 75 % of women with persistent
PPGP. A subset of women will fail to obtain acceptable
pain relief from the current array of non-surgical treatment options. The purpose of this study is to assess the safety and effectiveness of minimally invasive sacroiliac (SI) joint fusion in women with chronic SI joint dysfunction whose
pain began in the peri-partum period whose symptoms were recalcitrant to non-surgical management. A sub-group analysis of subjects with sacroiliac joint disruption and/or degenerative
sacroiliitis enrolled in a prospective, multi-center trial of SI joint fusion was performed. Subjects with
PPGP were identified and compared with women without
PPGP and with men. Of 172 enrolled subjects, 52 were male, 100 were females without
PPGP and 20 females had
PPGP.
PPGP subjects were significantly younger (43.3 years, vs. 52.8 for females without
PPGP and 50.5 for men, p = 0.002). There were no differences in any other demographic or baseline clinical measure. Women with
PPGP experienced a significant improvement in
pain (-51 mm on VAS), function (-20.6 pts on ODI) and quality of life (SF-36 PCS +10.4, MCS +7.2, EQ-5D +0.31) at 12 months after surgery. These improvements were characteristic of the overall study results; no difference was detected between sub-groups. The sacroiliac joint can be a source of
pain in women with persistent
PPGP and should be investigated as a
pain generator. In this study, women with carefully diagnosed chronic SI
joint pain from
PPGP recalcitrant to
conservative therapies experienced clinically beneficially improvements in
pain, disability and quality of life after minimally invasive SI joint fusion using a series of triangular porous plasma spray coated implants.