The chronic neuropathic pain of spinal cord injury: which efficiency of neuropathic stimulation?

OBJECTIVE

Determine the efficacy of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) for treating neuropathic pain in spinal cord injury (SCI) patients.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

We proceeded with a data analysis of the French and English medical literature with the following keywords: chronic neuropathic pain, spinal cord stimulation. The quality of every selected article was analyzed according to criteria established by the French National Health Authority (HAS).

RESULTS

Eighty-three articles were read, 27 of them report clinical studies on SCS on at least one SCI patient. No article had a level of proof lower than 4.

CONCLUSION

There is no significant level of proof to recommend the use of this technique in this indication. Conducting further studies, either physiological or clinical, could help to promote this technique with very minor adverse effects in an indication which, to this day, has no gold standard.