New therapy delivers long-term relief for chronic back, leg pain, study finds

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-07/asoa-ntd072815.php

Public Release: 28-Jul-2015
New therapy delivers long-term relief for chronic back, leg pain, study finds

American Society of Anesthesiologists

Chronic back and leg pain sufferers in search of better pain relief options may have a new choice. According to a study published in the Online First edition of Anesthesiology, the official medical journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists® (ASA®), patients who received a novel high frequency form of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) therapy experienced significantly greater, long-term relief for both chronic back and leg pain, when compared to a traditional low frequency form of SCS therapy.

"This is the first long-term study to compare the safety and effectiveness of high frequency and traditional SCS therapy for back and leg pain," said Leonardo Kapural, M.D., lead study author and professor of anesthesiology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and clinical director at Carolinas Pain Institute at Brookstown in Winston-Salem, N.C. "Chronic back and leg pain have long been considered difficult to treat and current pain relief options such as opioids have limited effectiveness and commonly known side effects. Given the prevalence of chronic pain, high frequency SCS is an exciting advance for our patients."

SCS is an increasingly common therapy that delivers electric pulses to the spinal cord, through a small device implanted under the skin, for difficult to treat chronic pain in the trunk and limbs. SCS is reversible and is an important option for chronic pain sufferers who otherwise would rely on opioids or back surgery for relief.

The new treatment, called HF10™ therapy, uses proprietary high frequency pulses of 10,000 Hz, compared to traditional SCS which uses frequencies of 40 to 60 Hz. HF10 therapy also provides pain relief without paresthesia - a stimulation-induced sensation commonly perceived as tingling or buzzing, which masks a patient's perception of pain - typical of traditional SCS. These sensations are often distracting or uncomfortable to patients and limit the utility and acceptance of traditional devices. Identifying a new intervention that does not rely on paresthesia to mask pain is novel to SCS and has the potential to improve pain relief and quality of life for these complex patients.

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