Electrical Stimulation for Back and Neck Pain

Electrical stimulation is a minimally invasive nonsurgical approach for treating upper back and neck pain in patients who cannot get adequate relief from spinal pain by conventional treatments.

Called Cervical PNT (percutaneous neuromodulation therapy), the treatment has been recently cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The system delivers electrical stimulation directly to the deep tissues in order to reach the nerve pathways in the central nervous system that affect pain. This type of stimulation is believed to arrest or reverse the imbalance that gives rise to persistent and unremitting pain. The stimulation is delivered in a series of outpatient treatment sessions performed in the doctor's office. The system was developed by Vertis Neuroscience, Inc. (Seattle, WA, USA). The company has developed a similar system, called Lumbar PNT, for the treatment of low back pain. Vertis states that several clinical trials have found PNT to be a highly reliable and effective treatment for spinal pain.

"The use of a low-risk option early in the process may reduce the number of patients who progress to the chronic stage,” said Richard Seroussi, M.D., medical director of Vertis and a PNT clinical trial investigator. "Cervical PNT offers physicians an important new option for treating neck pain in its early stages, as well as in cases where patients have progressed to a more chronic state.”




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Vertis Neuroscience Inc.