More than 80% of the harms required at least one surgery to correct the problem. The other half involved declines in people’s health such as unexplained increased pain, infection, and tears in the lining around the spinal cord. In the review, around half the reported harms were due to a malfunction of the device itself (for example, fracture of the electrical lead, or the lead moved to the wrong spot in the body). In 2023, health insurance data showed more than 1,300 spinal cord stimulator procedures were carried out around the country. We don’t know exactly how many spinal cord stimulators were implanted during this period, however this surgery is done reasonably widely in Australia, particularly in the private and workers compensation sectors. Of the 520 events reported between 20, 79% were considered “severe” and 13% were “life threatening”. So we need to look to other sources.Ī review of adverse events reported to Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration found the harms can be serious. The experimental studies often had small numbers of participants, making any estimate of the harms of spinal cord stimulation difficult. The review concluded the data doesn’t support the use of spinal cord stimulation for people with back pain. Only one high-quality study compared spinal cord stimulation to placebo up to six months, and it showed no benefit. And while some studies appeared to show better pain relief with active spinal cord stimulation, the benefits were small, and the evidence was uncertain. How long does back pain last? And how can learning about pain increase the chance of recovery?Ī 2023 Cochrane review of the published comparative studies found nearly all studies were restricted to short-term outcomes (weeks). They compared spinal cord stimulation to non-surgical treatments or placebo devices (for example, deactivated spinal cord stimulators). Later studies provided more useful evidence. This study looked at patients who didn’t get relief from initial spinal surgery and compared implantation of a spinal cord stimulator to a repeat of the spinal surgery.Īlthough it found spinal cord stimulation was the more effective intervention for chronic back pain, the fact this study compared the device to something that had already failed once is an obvious limitation. One of the first studies used to support the effectiveness of spinal cord stimulators was published in 2005.
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