Ultrasound-Guided Percutaneous Peripheral Nerve Stimulation: A Department of Defense Funded Multicenter Pilot Study

Study Summary

Postoperative pain is usually treated with opioids that have undesirable and sometimes dangerous side effects (e.g., vomiting and respiratory depression)-and yet over 80% of patients still experience inadequate pain relief. A novel, non-pharmacologic analgesic technique-percutaneous peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS)- holds extraordinary potential to greatly reduce or obviate opioid requirements and concurrently improve analgesia following painful surgery. This technique involves inserting an insulated electric lead adjacent to a target nerve through a needle prior to surgery using ultrasound guidance. Following surgery, a tiny electric current is delivered to the nerve resulting in potent pain control without any cognitive or adverse systemic side effects whatsoever. The electrical pulse generator (stimulator) is so small it is simply affixed to the patient's skin. The leads are already cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat acute (postoperative) pain for up to 60 days; and, since percutaneous PNS may be provided on an outpatient basis, the technique holds the promise of providing potent analgesia outlasting the pain of surgery-in other words, the possibility of a painless, opioid-free recovery following surgery. The current project is a multicenter, randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled, parallel-arm clinical pilot study to (1) determine the feasibility and optimize the protocol of a planned definitive clinical trial; and (2) estimate the treatment effect of percutaneous PNS on pain and opioid consumption following moderate-to-severely painful ambulatory surgery compared with usual and customary opioid-based analgesia. This will allow determination of the required sample size for a subsequent definitive multicenter clinical trial. Combined, the pilot study and definitive trial have a strong potential to dramatically reduce or obviate postoperative opioid requirements and their resultant negative effects on both individuals and society; wh

Primary Outcome

Cumulative opioid dose from days 0-7, collected on days 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7 for the previous 24 hours at each time point measured in morphine equivalents

Interventions

• DEVICE ACTIVE peripheral nerve stimulation with a percutaneously inserted lead and wearable stimulator (SPR Therapeutics, Cleveland, Ohio)
• DEVICE SHAM peripheral nerve stimulation with a percutaneously inserted lead and wearable SHAM stimulator (SPR Therapeutics, Cleveland, Ohio)