Pain management
-
Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a painful and sometimes debilitating condition affecting an estimated 14 million people in the USA alone. Management of knee OA begins with conservative medical treatments and progresses to total knee arthroplasty. ⋯ Cooled radiofrequency ablation has shown clinical effectiveness in managing knee OA pain, with a majority of patients experiencing upwards of 12 months of analgesic effect. Herein is presented an overview of the technology of cooled radiofrequency ablation and a summary of current clinical trials demonstrating the treatments effectiveness.
-
Aim: Cooled radiofrequency ablation (CRFA) has demonstrated efficacy in the management of knee pain caused by osteoarthritis. A typical procedure involves fluoroscopic placement of internally cooled radiofrequency probes to ensure the probes are located near target genicular nerves. Patients & methods: A new technique was developed to perform CRFA using ultrasound (US) guidance. ⋯ There were no safety concerns identified and the majority of patients reported satisfactory outcomes. Conclusion: Patient outcomes demonstrate that US-guided CRFA procedures provide pain relief and functional improvement. Further studies are needed to compare the efficacy of US-guided CRFA to fluoroscopy-guided CRFA procedures.