Active clinical trials for "Failed Back Surgery Syndrome"

The purpose of this study is to find out the effectiveness of integrative medicine model for pain relief and improvement of function and quality of life on the patients with pain after back surgery.

The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) using the Medtronic Specify® 5-6-5 multicolumn surgical lead plus optimal medical management (OMM) versus OMM alone in patients suffering from predominant low back pain due to failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS).

Aim of the study Failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) is a clinical entity consisting of chronic leg and /or back pain due to radicular nerve damage. The effectiveness of Spinal Cord Stimulation (SCS) in the pain management of patients with FBSS is proven. Patients mostly have dominant leg pain, however a significant percentage of FBSS patients has a more pronounced back pain and are commonly excluded from SCS as it is often inadequate in relieving both the back and leg pain components. Recently some reports showed the benefit of subcutaneous stimulation (SubQ) for low back pain in patients with FBSS. This has been confirmed by a feasibility study performed by our group. The aim of the randomized controlled study is to evaluate the effect of SubQ on low back pain in FBSS patients for whom SCS gives an inadequate back pain relief. Hypothesis We hypothesize that SubQ in addition to SCS in FBSS patients with leg and low back pain is more effective in treating low back pain (i.e. >50% pain reduction) than SCS alone.

Chronic Back and/or Leg Pain (CBLP) after spinal surgical procedures, a condition commonly labelled Failed Back Surgery Syndrome (FBSS), affects between 15% and 40% of patients after a spine surgery. Treatment of this chronic condition by further operation or medical management has a heavy financial impact on health care systems. Many studies have demonstrated the efficacy and economic value of Spinal Cord Stimulation (SCS) for chronic neuropathic pain, and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have shown SCS to be a clinically effective adjunct to medical management. SCS has the advantages of being reversible and less invasive than surgery and may cause fewer issues over time than long-term pharmacological treatments. Despite variable levels of success in the literature, approximately 30-55% of the patients treated with traditional SCS for neuropathic pain disorders will not receive adequate long term pain relief. Therefore, technical SCS system refinements, as well as new techniques have emerged. Two new stimulation waveforms based on traditional SCS technology have appeared to further optimize the outcome for specific painful conditions; Burst stimulation mode: which generates constant-current stimuli with 5 spikes at 500 Hz per burst and pulse width and interspike intervals of 1 ms. High-frequency stimulation (from 1 to 10 kHz) mode. Several studies have demonstrated the potential interest of these 2 new waveforms to treat FBSS patients compared to traditional SCS. The Precision Spectra™ system allows MultiWave Technology by offering a broad spectrum of waveform options (from Tonic Conventional Stimulation (TCS), BURST stimulation to High Frequency stimulation (HF)). To date, literature data comparing these 3 stimulation patterns is lacking but it is suggested the pain relief in some of non-responsive patients can be "recaptured" by increasing the SCS frequency to 500 Hz by BURST stimulation or beyond by HF stimulation. It seems important to conduct RCT in crossover, thanks to the new Precision SCS Stimulator, to compare the effects of these 3 different SCS modalities in FBSS patients and to determine which concept is the most effective in terms of pain reduction and energy consumption.

This study is a prospective, single-arm, open label, single center pilot study to confirm the safety of a ultrahigh frequency DRG stimulator in patients with chronic lower limb pain. The actual trial length is 5 days. Pts will be given ultrahigh frequency pulse stimulation, and VAS will be obtained after 3-4 hours of each stimulation.

The purpose of this study will be to determine the efficacy and the prognostic value of a continuous intrathecal prognostic infusion test in an in-hospital setting for selecting patients who would have better long term outcomes for treatment with intrathecal implantable devices. The investigators will compare the primary outcomes [changes in pain intensity score (NRS), patient global impression of change (PGIC)] before and after intrathecal infusion of an admixture of bupivacaine 0.625 mg/ml and fentanyl 1 mcg/ml versus normal saline. The study will include 36 patients with intractable chronic low back pain in the setting of lumbar post-laminectomy syndrome or vertebral compression fracture who failed conservative management and are considered candidates for IDDS. Prior to the implant, the patients will undergo an intrathecal prognostic infusion test with an externalized catheter. Baseline NRS pain scores will be assessed and documented on all patients upon admission to the preoperative area. An intrathecal catheter will be placed in the outpatient procedure suite at the appropriate level for target dermatomes. The needle entry point will occur in the upper lumbar spine and catheter tip will be placed in the lower thoracic spine, under local anesthesia with the patient awake and with minimal or no sedation. The intrathecal infusion will be started using an external pump once patient is in the PACU. The research component is to perform the intrathecal test with normal saline (inactive placebo solution) in addition to a test with fentanyl and bupivacaine (active solution). Patients will be randomly assigned to either Group I (continuous infusion of bupivacaine and fentanyl followed by saline) or Group II (continuous infusion of saline followed by bupivacaine and fentanyl). In PACU, patients will be started on an infusion rate of 0.5 ml/hr and titrated to pain relief greater than 50% of baseline or up to 0.8-1.0 ml/hr within 6-8 hrs after start of the infusion. A clinician blinded to the treatment arm will assess NRS and PGIC on the patients after approximately 12 hours. Assessment will include changes in pain intensity score at rest and upon ambulating or performing maneuvers that normally elicit patient's low back pain. A 4-6-hour washout period will be allotted with infusion of preservative-free normal saline at a rate of 0.2 ml/hr, after which the physician will document a return of the NRS to baseline before switching therapies.

Failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) is the term of persistent back and/or leg pain after surgery for lumbar disk herniation (LDH). Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (r-TMS) is a technique that allows non-invasive and relatively painless stimulation of cerebral cortex. It can reduce the experience of chronic pain by using magnetic field to produce small electrical currents in the cortex.The aim of this study is to determine the effectiveness of r-TMS treatment on patients with FBSS.

Failed Back Surgery Syndrome (FBSS) is a relatively common condition that can cause a severe disability in patients. Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is used in those patients refractory to conventional therapies.In this project the investigators aim to identify new functional molecular basis, defined with transcriptomic profiling, differentially represented in the serum of patients suffering chronic pain caused by FBSS. The investigators will try to Identify "omics" markers for diagnosing and monitoring the process of development and maintenance of pain as well as the evaluation of these as evolutionary disease markers or predictors of the response to SCS therapy. To carry out the project, 40 patients diagnosed with refractory FBSS and treated with an SCS system for pain management will be included. Blood samples will be obtained to analyze the transcription profiling in plasma of patients responding to different modalities of SCS therapy.

Electrical stimulation of the spinal cord (Spinal Cord Stimulation or SCS) for pain relief has been used for decades. It is used most commonly in patients with chronic neuropathic leg pain, after spinal surgery. Conventional neurostimulation is applied in frequencies of 30 to 60 Hertz (Hz) and perceptible paraesthesias are felt. Stimulation using higher frequencies with sub perception paraesthesias has recently challenged the conventional form of neurostimulation.The high frequency stimulation appears to show better pain relief for both back and limb pain in comparison to low frequency SCS, and may also to be effective in some subjects who did not respond to low frequency SCS.

Failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) constitutes a frequent pathology, generates a severe handicap for patients and represents a considerable expense for healthcare system. Neurostimulation has currently not been validated in the treatment of back pain because of technological limitations in implantable spinal cord stimulation (SCS). The lack of a validated technique for back pain relief has prompted the development of newer devices, including leads with increased number of contacts (up to 16) and various geometric arrangements, the objective of which is to cover a larger area while attempting to extend, steer, or focus the electric field of the stimulation within the spinal cord regions. This led companies to design a new generation of multicolumn surgical leads that allow the activation of longitudinal and transverse electric fields (multicolumn spinal cord stimulation, MSCS) in order to provide bilateral paresthesia coverage of back pain. The objective of this study is to compare the analgesic efficacy of MSCS (using longitudinal and transverse electric stimulation) versus mono-column spinal cord stimulation (CSCS, using axial stimulation, actually represented by quadripolar or octopolar lead) on the treatment of lumbar pain. A total of 115 patients will be randomized to either CSCS or MSCS. Patients, between 18 and 80 years old suffering from refractory neuropathic pain of radicular origin with associated back pain will be included. Patients will be divided into two groups. One group with MSCS during the 12 months after the new generation electrode implantation and one group with CSCS during 6 months and MSCS between 6 and 12 months after the new generation electrode implantation. The following parameters will be evaluated during this study: overall pain VAS, leg pain VAS, back pain VAS, Oswestry disability index, Montgomery and Asberg Depression Rating scale, Brief Anxiety Scale and the Euro Quality of Life-5 Dimension Health questionnaire and costing in relation to surgery and patient management.