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. 2020 Nov 7;21(7):1421-1432.
doi: 10.1093/pm/pnz353.

A Systematic Literature Review of Spine Neurostimulation Therapies for the Treatment of Pain

Timothy R Deer  1 , Jay S Grider  2 , Tim J Lamer  3 , Jason E Pope  4 , Steven Falowski  5 , Corey W Hunter  6 , David A Provenzano  7 , Konstantin V Slavin  8 , Marc Russo  9 , Alexios Carayannopoulos  10   11 , Jay M Shah  12 , Michael E Harned  2 , Jonathan M Hagedorn  3 , Robert B Bolash  13 , Jeff E Arle  14 , Leo Kapural  15 , Kasra Amirdelfan  16 , Sameer Jain  17 , Liong Liem  18 , Jonathan D Carlson  19 , Mark N Malinowski  20 , Markus Bendel  3 , Ajax Yang  21 , Rohit Aiyer  22 , Ali Valimahomed  23 , Ajay Antony  24 , Justin Craig  2 , Michael A Fishman  25 , Adnan A Al-Kaisy  26 , Nick Christelis  27 , Richard W Rosenquist  13 , Robert M Levy  28 , Nagy Mekhail  13
Affiliations

A Systematic Literature Review of Spine Neurostimulation Therapies for the Treatment of Pain

Timothy R Deer et al. Pain Med. .

Erratum in

  • Corrigendum to: A Systematic Literature Review of Spine Neurostimulation Therapies for the Treatment of Pain.
    Deer TR, Grider JS, Lamer TJ, Pope JE, Falowski S, Hunter CW, Provenzano DA, Slavin KV, Russo M, Carayannopoulos A, Shah JM, Harned ME, Hagedorn JM, Bolash RB, Arle JE, Kapural L, Amirdelfan K, Jain S, Liem L, Carlson JD, Malinowski MN, Bendel M, Yang A, Aiyer R, Valimahomed A, Antony A, Craig J, Fishman MA, Al-Kaisy AA, Christelis N, Rosenquist RW, Levy RM, Mekhail N. Deer TR, et al. Pain Med. 2021 Feb 4;22(1):236. doi: 10.1093/pm/pnaa209. Pain Med. 2021. PMID: 32875323 No abstract available.

Abstract

Objective: To conduct a systematic literature review of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) for pain.

Design: Grade the evidence for SCS.

Methods: An international, interdisciplinary work group conducted literature searches, reviewed abstracts, and selected studies for grading. Inclusion/exclusion criteria included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of patients with intractable pain of greater than one year's duration. Full studies were graded by two independent reviewers. Excluded studies were retrospective, had small numbers of subjects, or existed only as abstracts. Studies were graded using the modified Interventional Pain Management Techniques-Quality Appraisal of Reliability and Risk of Bias Assessment, the Cochrane Collaborations Risk of Bias assessment, and the US Preventative Services Task Force level-of-evidence criteria.

Results: SCS has Level 1 evidence (strong) for axial back/lumbar radiculopathy or neuralgia (five high-quality RCTs) and complex regional pain syndrome (one high-quality RCT).

Conclusions: High-level evidence supports SCS for treating chronic pain and complex regional pain syndrome. For patients with failed back surgery syndrome, SCS was more effective than reoperation or medical management. New stimulation waveforms and frequencies may provide a greater likelihood of pain relief compared with conventional SCS for patients with axial back pain, with or without radicular pain.

Keywords: Chronic Pain; Nerve Stimulation; Neuromodulation; Pain Management; Spinal Cord Stimulation; Systematic Review.

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