Jean-Pierre Van Buyten

• MD, PhD.
• CEO at AZ Nikolaas

Introduction Spinal cord stimulation is a common treatment option for neuropathic pain conditions. Despite its extensive use and multiple technological evolutions, long term efficacy of spinal cord stimulation is debated. Most studies on spinal cord stimulation include a rather limited number of patients and/or follow-ups over a limited period. The...

The foramen ovale (FO) of the sphenoid bone is clinically important for the interventional treatment of trigeminal neuralgia. Percutaneous procedures applied to treat the chronic pain condition typically involve the cannulation of this oval-like foramen located at the base of the skull. Anatomic variations of the FO have been reported to contribute...

Background Restorative neurostimulation is a rehabilitative treatment for patients with refractory chronic low back pain (CLBP) associated with dysfunction of the lumbar multifidus muscle resulting in impaired neuromuscular control. The ReActiv8-B randomized, sham-controlled trial provided evidence of the effectiveness and safety of an implanted, r...

Background: Radiofrequency (RF) treatment of the genicular nerves offers pain relief in patients suffering from chronic knee pain including persistent post-surgical knee pain (PPSP). We present the first case report of the development of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) in a chronic knee pain patient after an RF ablation of the genicular nerv...

Background Impaired neuromuscular control and degeneration of the multifidus muscle have been linked to the development of refractory chronic low back pain (CLBP). An implantable restorative-neurostimulator system can override the underlying multifidus inhibition by eliciting episodic, isolated contractions. The ReActiv8-B randomized, active-sham-c...

This report describes the successful treatment of two patients with trigeminal neuropathy by using gasserian ganglion stimulation. Case reports: The first case report deals with a 53‐year‐old woman suffering from right‐sided facial pain after a gamma knife lesion for schwannoma of the right inner ear. For 9 years, several interventions with the aim...

Background Anterior cutaneous nerve entrapment syndrome (ACNES) is a painful condition that can be refractory in a small percentage of patients. Abdominal pain caused by thoracic nerve entrapment in the abdominal wall characterizes ACNES. In the small number of refractory patients to all standard treatments, medication overuse and abuse are serious...

Objectives: The purpose of the ongoing follow-up of ReActiv8-A clinical trial is to document the longitudinal benefits of episodic stimulation of the dorsal ramus medial branch and consequent contraction of the lumbar multifidus in patients with refractory mechanical chronic low back pain (CLBP). We report the four-year outcomes of this trial. Ma...

Objectives Patients eligible for spinal cord stimulation (SCS) generally experience excruciating pain, requiring more opioid consumption, which is usually an indication for SCS implantation. After final implantation, SCS has the ability to stabilize or decrease opioid usage in half of the patients. In this study, opioids were actively eliminated pr...

Chronic low back pain can be caused by impaired control and degeneration of the multifidus muscles and consequent functional instability of the lumbar spine. Available treatment options have limited effectiveness and prognosis is unfavorable. We conducted an international randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial at 26 multidisciplinary cente...

Despite the proven clinical value of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) for patients with failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS), factors related to a successful SCS outcome are not yet clearly understood. This study aimed to predict responders for high frequency SCS at 10 kHz (HF-10). Data before implantation and the last available data was extracted for...

Introduction: Spinal Cord Stimulation (SCS) is effective for Failed Back Surgery Syndrome (FBSS) patients. It improves pain, the functionality and health-related quality of life for patients. Different waveforms for SCS have emerged which show improvement in small prospective studies. Analysis of real-world data shows the clinical implementation a...

Spinal cord stimulation at 10 kHz is a promising therapy for non‐surgical refractory back pain; however, published data are currently limited. We present a subanalysis of prospectively collected clinical outcome data for non‐surgical refractory back pain patients treated with 10 kHz spinal cord stimulation, from the independent cohorts of two previ...

Chronic pain is a common condition that affects the physical, emotional, and mental well‐being of patients and can significantly diminish their quality of life. Due to growing concerns about the substantial risks of long‐term opioid use, both governmental agencies and professional societies have recommended prioritizing the use of nonpharmacologic...

Chronic pain, including chronic low back and leg pain are prominent causes of disability worldwide. While patient management aims to reduce pain and improve daily function, prescription of opioids remains widespread despite significant adverse effects. This study pooled data from two large prospective trials on 10 kHz spinal cord stimulation (10 kH...

Failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) is a major, worldwide health problem that generates considerable expense for healthcare systems. A number of controversial issues concerning the management of FBSS are regularly debated, but no clear consensus has been reached. This pitfall is the result of lack of a standardized care pathway due to insufficient...

Failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) is a controversial term for identifying patients affected by new, recurrent, or persistent pain in the low back and/or legs following spinal surgery. The lack of a comprehensive standardized care pathway compromises the appropriate management of FBSS patients, which is associated with a heavy financial burden. An...

Objectives The purpose of the international multicenter prospective single arm clinical trial was to evaluate restorative neurostimulation eliciting episodic contraction of the lumbar multifidus for treatment of chronic mechanical low back pain (CMLBP) in patients who have failed conventional therapy and are not candidates for surgery or spinal cor...

Objectives: To understand the subjective pain experience of patients, healthcare providers rely heavily on self-reporting. However, to quantify this unique pain experience, objective parameters are not yet available in daily clinical practice. With regard to patients with failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) treated with spinal cord stimulation (SC...

Objectives: Clinical trials of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) have largely focused on conversion from trial to permanent SCS and the first years after implant. This study evaluates the association of type of SCS and patient characteristics with longer-term therapy-related explants. Materials and methods: Implanting centers in three European count...

Objectives: We evaluated the effectiveness of a custom-made neurostimulator with which to treat patients for refractory trigeminal neuropathic pain (TNP) at the level of the Gasserian ganglion. Materials and methods: A retrospective analysis of 22 patients referred to our pain clinic, AZ Sint-Nikolaas, between 2010 and 2015, was conducted using...

The term failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) is commonly used to describe patients who have ongoing chronic pain after surgery of the lumbar spine. Patients present with persisting spinal (low back or cervical) pain that may or may not radiate into the limb. This denomination is not correct. It feeds the impression as if spine surgery has not been...

Facial pain in the distribution of the trigeminal nerve, commonly identified as trigeminal neuralgia, should not be confused with trigeminal neuropathic pain. The latter is caused by an accidental and nonintentional nerve lesion. When the first-line pharmacological treatment fails to provide satisfactory pain relief, surgical treatment, such as mic...

Objectives Electrical stimulation for multifidus muscle contraction is a novel approach for treating chronic low back pain (CLBP). A multicenter, open-label feasibility study investigated this modality in patients with continuing CLBP despite medical management and no prior back surgery and no known pathological cause of CLBP.Methods Twenty-six pat...

Objective Chronic pain remains a serious public health problem worldwide. A spinal cord stimulation (SCS) therapy called HF10 SCS uses 10-kHz high-frequency stimulation to provide pain relief without paresthesia. In this article, we describe the therapy, device, and the methods of implant and then review the safety and effectiveness data for this t...

Objectives: Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is an effective method of relieving chronic intractable pain, and one of its key indications is failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS). The objective of the current study was to evaluate the cost effectiveness of 10 kHz high-frequency SCS (HF10 SCS) compared to conventional medical management (CMM), reoperati...

Objectives Spinal cord stimulation of the dorsal root ganglion (DRG-SCS) is a new therapy for treating chronic neuropathic pain. Previous work has demonstrated the effectiveness of DRG-SCS for pain associated with failed back surgery syndrome, complex regional pain syndrome, chronic postsurgical pain, and other etiologies through 6 months of treatm...

Objectives One prominent side effect from neurostimulation techniques, and in particular spinal cord stimulation (SCS), is the change in intensity of stimulation when moving from an upright (vertical) to a recumbent or supine (horizontal) position and vice versa. It is well understood that the effects of gravity combined with highly conductive cere...

Trigeminal neuralgia is initially managed pharmacologically. The selection of an interventional treatment is preceded by an accurate diagnosis with attention to vascular compression and potential neuropathy. Radiofrequency thermocoagulation of the Gasserian ganglion is well documented and preferred percutaneous treatment. There is evidence that eff...

Background Complex regional pain syndrome ( CRPS ) is a chronic and progressive pain condition usually involving the extremities and characterized by sensorimotor, vascular, and trophic changes. Spinal cord stimulation ( SCS ) is an effective intervention for this condition, but is hampered by the technical challenges associated with precisely dire...

L’utilisation de courant électrique dans le traitement de douleur a déjà été mentionnée par les anciens Grecs, qui appliquaient les décharges électriques des poissons torpilles sur les régions douloureuses6. C’est la théorie du portillon de Wall et Melzack7 qui marqua véritablement l’introduction de la neurostimulation dans le traitement de la doul...

Les termes céphalées ou douleurs craniofaciales reprennent une variété de conditions différentes qui requièrent une approche spécifique. Pour standardiser la communication entre les professionnels de la santé et faciliter le choix thérapeutique, l’International Headache Society a publié une classification des céphalées (ICHD) [1]. Le grand mérite d...

The aim of this study was to investigate the long-term efficacy and safety of paresthesia-free high-frequency spinal cord stimulation (HF10 SCS) for the treatment of chronic, intractable pain of the low back and legs. Prospective, multicenter, observational study. Patients with significant chronic low back pain underwent implantation of a spinal co...

Objectives: This multicenter prospective trial was conducted to evaluate the clinical performance of a new neurostimulation system designed to treat chronic pain through the electrical neuromodulation of the dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurophysiologically associated with painful regions of the limbs and/or trunk. Materials and methods: Thirty-two...

Objective: The objective of this prospective, open-label, multicenter European clinical trial was to quantify the efficacy and safety of a spinal cord stimulation (SCS) system that utilizes high-frequency (up to 10 kHz) waveforms, which do not produce paresthesia, for the treatment of chronic, intractable pain of the back and/or limbs. Material a...

Neuromodulation techniques appear to have a cost-effective niche for certain refractory patients with persistent CRPS.

In the mid of the 20th century various types of facial pains, not clearly originating from the teeth or the eyes, were often misdiagnosed as trigeminal neuralgia and treated with lesional techniques. Pains from the rest of the head were simply classified as “headache” and treated with the pharmaceutical means available at that time. For migraine th...

In recent years, technical advances have allowed more significant structural spine surgery through small access portals. Minimally invasive spinal surgery (MISS) is commonly thought of as posterior approaches using muscle dilating tubular retraction systems, but these approaches are best suited to a single spinal level and require bony disruption a...

Approximately 30% of patients experience persistent or recurrent low back and/or pain projecting into the legs following technically adequate lumbosacral surgery. Such pain conditions are often alluded to as the failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS). FBSS represents a significant clinical and economic concern. The treatment of FBSS presents a challen...

Chronic back and leg pain associated with lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) is common in the elderly. Surgical decompression is usually performed when conservative treatments fail. We present an evaluation of the long-term outcome of patients suffering from symptomatic LSS treated with spinal cord stimulation (SCS). Data were collected prospectively in...

Occipital nerve stimulation (ONS) has been employed off-label for medically refractory head pain. Identification of specific headache diagnoses responding to this modality of treatment is required. Forty-four patients with medically refractory head pain and treated with ONS were invited to participate in a retrospective study including a clinical i...

Introduction Interventional pain management techniques require precise positioning of needles or electrodes, therefore fluoroscopic control is mandatory. This imaging technique does however not visualize soft tissues such as blood vessels. Moreover, patient and physician are exposed to a considerable dose of radiation. Computed tomography (CT)-scan...

The management of chronic pain is challenging for the patient and the physician. Besides pharmacologic treatment pain therapists dispose of several minimal invasive interventional techniques. When used for the correct diagnosis and under the appropriate conditions, those techniques have been documented to provide pain relief and improve the patient...

Spinal cord stimulation is an effective therapy for chronic, neuropathic pain refractory to medication. Use of a rechargeable neurostimulation system (Restore, Medtronic Inc) could provide greater longevity in the treatment of complex pain. However, patients' ability to successfully recharge a neurostimulation system has not yet been demonstrated....

Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is an effective technique for the relief of neuropathic pain. Biologic complications are more prevalent within the first 3 months after implantation, are generally minor and reversible, and do not affect patients' acceptance of the treatment. Technically, hardware-related complications are uncommon and occur more frequ...

Failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) is defined as persistent or recurrent pain, mainly in the lower back and/or legs, even after previous anatomically successful spinal surgery. Treatment of such patients is difficult, with conservative therapy and repeated back surgery often proving unsuccessful at providing adequate pain relief. Spinal cord stimu...

Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) for the treatment of neuropathic pain is supported by good-quality randomized controlled trials, prospective and retrospective case studies, and observational case series that confirm its efficacy and safety. SCS has been successfully used in various refractory neuropathic pain conditions, including failed back surgery...

To review the clinical and cost-effectiveness of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) in the management of patients with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and identify the potential predictors of SCS outcome. Systematic review of the literature and meta-regression. Electronic databases were searched for controlled and uncontrolled studies and economic...

Systematic review. To assess efficacy and safety of spinal cord stimulation in patients with chronic leg and back pain and failed back surgery syndrome and to examine prognostic factors that predict spinal cord stimulation outcome. A previous systematic review of spinal cord stimulation in patients with chronic back and leg pain and failed back sur...

In this systematic review, we identified and evaluated studies of the cost effectiveness of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) for the treatment of chronic pain. Published reports were identified from a systematic search of a number of general medical electronic databases (Medline, CINAHL, and EMBASE), and specialist economic databases (NHS Centre for R...

Pulsed radiofrequency treatment has been described as a minimal invasive alternative to radiofrequency thermocoagulation for the management of chronic pain syndromes. We present here our first five high-risk patients with idiopathic trigeminal neuralgia who were treated with pulsed radiofrequency after multidisciplinary assessment; with a mean foll...

The Model 8831 Personal Therapy Manager (PTM) offers a patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) option for the SynchroMed Infusion System (Medtronic Inc., Minneapolis, MN). The safety and effective operation of the PTM activator was evaluated in 45 patients in five European centers receiving intrathecal drug infusion for the treatment of chronic pain via...

Reliability and ease of use of the Itrel 3 System (Medtronic Inc., Minneapolis, MN) were prospectively assessed over 5 years in patients with a range of pain syndromes (mainly low back and/or leg pain, or ischemic pain due to peripheral vascular disease). The longevity of the implantable pulse generator (IPG) battery, the frequency with which syste...

Spinal cord stimulation is a minimally invasive mode of treatment in the management of certain forms of chronic pain that do not respond to conventional pain therapy. Several authors have reported encouraging findings with this technique. Over a 10-year period in a single centre, 254 patients were subjected to a trial period of spinal cord stimulat...

Intrathecal administration of opioids is a very efficient tool in the long-term control of intractable nonmalignant pain. However, despite the well known role of opioids in endocrine regulation, few data are available about possible effects on hypothalamic-pituitary function during this treatment. Seventy-three patients (29 men and 44 women; mean a...

Objective. Treatment of pain associated with failed back surgery syndrome was evaluated in a pilot clinical study of a new dual lead spinal cord stimulation (SCS) system. Methods. The following data was retrospectively sought from 20 non-randomized patients at 2 centers treated by the new SCS system, instead of an implantable drug pump: 1) prior ba...

Although opioid therapy has been accepted for the treatment of patients with cancer pain, its use for nonmalignant pain is still regarded as controversial due to concerns about the development of tolerance and psychological dependence. However, recent studies indicate that there is a low incidence of addiction in patients who do not have a history...

Intrathecal drug delivery is effective for the treatment of cancer and nonmalignant pain in patients who do not respond well to oral opioids, in patients who cannot tolerate the side effects associated with opioids, or in patients who show a large, permanent increase in dosage. Although intrathecal drug delivery is associated with pharmacological s...

Since the emergence of locoregional anaesthesia, nerve blocks with local anaesthetic or neurolytic agents have been used in chronic pain patients for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.A critical evaluation of this type of intervention has only begun during the past 10 years. In the literature, few clinical reports on nerve blockade have withstood...

Spinally administered opioids must be a last step in the therapeutical arsenal of chronic benigne pain. It is an invasive technique not free from adverse effects. Two chronic pain patients received an implantable Synchromed pump for treatment with spinal opiates after a trial period of resp. 3.5 and 5.5 months. Due to a misprogrammation (both on th...