Spinal Cord Burst Stimulation vs Placebo Stimulation for Patients With Chronic Radicular Pain After Lumbar Spine Surgery—Reply

Six-Month Follow-up of a Trial of Spinal Cord Burst Stimulation vs Placebo Stimulation and Disability in Patients With Chronic Radicular Pain After Lumbar Spine Surgery

“…A recent randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover trial found that among patients with chronic radicular pain after lumbar spine surgery, spinal cord burst stimulation was not superior to placebo for improving pain-related disability . The main limitation of the trial was that blinding of treatment allocation prohibited repeated fine-tuning of stimulation parameters (ie, amplitude, pulse width, and frequency) in open dialogue with patients and the use of paresthesia-inducing tonic stimulation . This post hoc follow-up study investigated back pain–related disability at 6 months following completion of the final randomization period when patients were unblinded and provided with handheld spinal cord stimulation programmers allowing changes to stimulation settings and switching between burst and tonic stimulation.…”