This study used data from two previous clinical trials involving the use of a modern spinal cord stimulation (SCS) therapy to treat chronic pain (known as ECAP-SCS).

Dr Russo co-authored the paper and was a principal investigator on one of the original clinical trials involving ECAP-SCS.

The authors looked at the impact of SCS therapy on functional disability and health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) in patients implanted with an ECAP-SCS system.

The findings show that after 1 year of therapy, both disability and HRQoL scores were significantly improved across patients. The study also showed that improvements in a patient’s quality of life was associated with improvements in their level of disability.

This research is significant because most SCS clinical trials focus on pain score as the most important outcome, however, for many patients with chronic pain, improved physical function (disability) is just as important. Quality-of-life is another very meaningful outcome that is often missed in SCS clinical trials.

Therefore, future research should look at disability, pain score, and quality-of-life together as meaningful, important outcomes in studies of SCS therapy for the treatment of chronic pain.

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