High cervical spinal cord stimulation after failed dorsal root entry zone surgery for brachial plexus avulsion pain.
BACKGROUND
Many patients had intractable pain after brachial plexus avulsion. This article describes a feasible method of high cervical SCS for a patient who failed in DREZ surgery to treat the pain.


METHODS
A 70-year-old man had right brachial plexus avulsion after a car accident 15 years ago. He complained of chronic spontaneous pain over his right upper limb since then. Two DREZ surgeries failed to relieve the pain. The pain was successfully controlled by high cervical SCS.


CONCLUSIONS
Stimulating the high cervical spinal cord is effective for treating intractable pain after brachial plexus avulsion, which the DREZ surgery failed to relieve.
Lai
Hung-Yi
HY
Department of Neurosurgery, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Chang Gung University, Kweishan, Taoyuan 333, Taiwan.
Lee
Ching-Yi
CY
Lee
Shih-Tseng
ST
D000063:Accidents, Traffic; D000368:Aged; D001917:Brachial Plexus / Q000293:injuries*; D002574:Cervical Vertebrae; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010146:Pain / Q000209:etiology; D059408:Pain Management; D011843:Radiculopathy / Q000150:complications* / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery*; D013116:Spinal Cord; D004561:Transcutaneous Electric Nerve Stimulation; D017211:Treatment Failure; D016896:Treatment Outcome