Effects of Spinal Cord Stimulation on Pain Thresholds and Sensory Perceptions in Chronic Pain Patients

Objective Measures to Characterize the Physiological Effects of Spinal Cord Stimulation in Neuropathic Pain: A Literature Review

“…In addition, they noted that SCS, but not placebo stimulation, increased patients’ ability to discriminate small differences in noxious heat intensity. Ahmed et al found similar results (without a placebo control) and demonstrated SCS‐induced increases in warm‐detection threshold, heat‐pain threshold, and heat‐pain tolerance .…”

“…Fourteen studies included in this review used quantitative sensory testing (QST) to assess the mechanistic effects of SCS (Table ). Thirteen studies used static QST to measure the effects of SCS on a patient's sensory‐detection threshold (first noticeable sensation), pain threshold (first noticeable pain sensation), and/or tolerance (no longer able to withstand the pain sensation) to heat, cold, pressure, tactile, vibratory, or electrical stimuli . An early study by Lindblom and Meyerson found elevations in tactile and vibration perception thresholds in five out of ten patients following SCS .…”

Effects of Tonic Spinal Cord Stimulation on Sensory Perception in Chronic Pain Patients: A Systematic Review

“…). Of these, 15 were articles (Table ) and 14 were abstracts/records of ongoing or unpublished studies (Supporting Information Table S3).…”

“…All the included studies reported that chronic pain levels were alleviated with tonic SCS. Three studies (20%) used qualitative observations to describe chronic pain relief . Five studies (33%) measured a statistically significant chronic pain reduction using a VAS ( F = 7.64, p = 0.006 ; median pain decrease from 62.5 [IQR: 28.8–71.8] to 15.5 [IQR: 1.5–31.3] from baseline to active stimulation ) a numeric rating scale (7 to 1–3 ; 5.7 ± 2.1 to 4.7 ± 2.6 ) or the average percentage of pain relief .…”

“…In our review, only five studies (33%) controlled medication intake in their participants. Three of them asked their patients not to take any analgesic medication for at least 2 , 4 , or 8 hours before testing initiation. In their study published in 2006, Eisenberg et al excluded patients who had started a new pain medication within two months prior to enrolment, while Meier et al asked their participants to use only acetaminophen as rescue medication instead of opioids during the examination session.…”