Zeitschrift für Schmerztherapie und Medizin

Abstrakt

Percutaneous cervical neurostimulation trials in patients with prior cervical decompressive laminectomy: a case series

Michael Patterson, Nestor Tomycz

In clinical pain medicine, there are situations in which an open surgical trial is the only way to provide a patient the opportunity to receive neuro-stimualtion. Such situations can include the location of prior surgical treatment, spinal hardware, and epidural scarring. Presented here are two cases in which each patient was informed, by experienced interventional pain physicians, that a surgical trial was the only possible approach for them to receive that treatment. Within our institution, and through collaboration between the neurosurgical and pain medicine teams, a differing second opinion was offered. Despite limitations in access to the epidural space, and based on the distribution of symptoms a percutaneous trial was successfully offered to each of them. As a result, these patients were able to trial this treatment before committing to additional surgical intervention.