Back pain: Looking at the effectiveness of new treatments
Hello
As a practice that focuses exclusively on curing back pain, we are always on the lookout for new advancements and treatments that can make our service even better.
This week I am going to tell you of an article looking at the effectiveness of a new treatment option, surgically implanting a device that stimulates the nerves of the spine.
This study implanted 204 restorative neurotransmitter devices into patients so that the device could restore the function of a muscle deep in the back called multifidus.
Half were given the correct stimulation the other half were given “sham” stimulation.
Sham stimulation just means stimulation that is known not to give any benefit. They do this so they can test if the stimulation is more effective than just believing it will work.
Let’s first look at the complications. Remember with any surgery there is always a risk of serious harm and complications not associated with the surgery like infections and device failure.
They found that 4% of the patients experienced serious procedure adverse events. 4 % doesn’t sound that bad…. But almost all were infections which lead to them going on a course of antibiotics, having the device taken out then put back in.
13% of the entire group had the device removed. The main reason for the removal was a lack of effectiveness.
Foreshadowing?
They found that after 120 days of the stimulation protocol, it was found that the results of the trial were inconclusive in terms of its superiority to the sham treatment.
They found that the results were not statistically significant.
This means that the improvements that the patients had after undergoing this procedure were not great enough to be so much better than just the sham treatment.
I don’t think this is the groundbreaking treatment they hoped it was, Do you?
Jason
