MORGANTOWN – WVU Medicine pain doctors took a first step in offering back pain patients more reliable pain relief. They did their first implant of the Medtronic Inceptiv spinal cord stimulator.
Spinal cord stimulators are commonly used to treat back pain but have an important drawback, explained Dr. Richard Vaglienti, WVUM Center for Integrative Pain Management Chronic Pain Medicine director.
They work by sending out mild electrical impulses that disrupt pain signals before they reach the brain.
But certain movements, such as laughing, bending, or sneezing, can create brief moments of uncomfortable overstimulation.
Some patients have told The Dominion Post they call it zapping. To avoid it, they turn down their stimulator settings to levels that are below what is therapeutically effective.
The Inceptiv, he said, can sense currents at the end of the lead and feed it back to the battery to adjust the output to keep it constant, which keeps the pain relief more constant. The Inceptiv senses the body’s response to stimulation 50 times per second and instantly adjusts the stimulation to maintain prescribed settings.
The Inceptiv hasn’t been released to the market yet, Vaglienti said. His clinic got to do a lead-in case because they work closely with Medtronic, the manufacturer.
They’ve only done the one implantation, so far, he said, but more are scheduled. “I’ve been doing spinal cord stimulation for a long time. The next phase of technology is this controller.” This will be what they implant in the future. “It’s a very big leap forward.”
In tests of the Inceptiv, Medtronic reports on its website that 84% of patients have more than 50% improvement in back pain; and 69% report 80% or greater improvement.
And Medtronic implants are shielded so they’re safe for patients undergoing MRIs, Vaglienti said.
Inceptivs are approved by the FDA for pain in the trunk and limbs, Vaglienti said, for patients who are not candidates for surgical intervention.
Other surgeons also employ spinal cord stimulators – neurosurgeons for head pain, urologists for pelvic pain in female patients – but the Inceptiv is not approved for those procedures.
WVUM reports that more than 50 million American adults suffer from chronic pain. Vaglienti said he performs on average two to three stimulator implants per month. Others in his practice may do one or two per month.
Vaglienti said in a release announcing the first installation of the Inceptiv, “This was a huge team effort which included the device manufacturer, the clinic, and WVU Medicine Allied Health Solutions, which quickly acquired the technology for WVU Medicine. This technology continues to put WVU Medicine in the vanguard technologically and allows us to provide the newest and best therapies to the people of West Virginia.”
Email: dbeard@dominionpost.com
