Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in the Treatment of Post-Laminectomy Syndrome: A Clinical Trial

[摘要] Aims. To evaluate the effectiveness of Transcranial Direct CurrentStimulation (tDCS) in treatment of post-laminectomy syndrome.Methods. Twenty-four patients were randomized in three groupsto receive active or sham anodic stimulation (1.5 mA, 20 minutesfor five consecutive days, with 25cm2 electrodes) in two differentareas (primary motor cortex (M1) vs. dorsolateral prefrontal cortex(DLPFC), according to lateralization of pain. Brief Pain Inventory(BPI) and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) were instruments used toassess pain, while Clinical Global Impression Scale (CGI) wasapplied to measure severity disease and clinical response.Additionally, the quality of life assessment was based on WorldHealth Organization Quality-of-Life Scale (WHOQOL-BREF). Inorder to identify psychiatric comorbidities, Beck’s DepressionInventory (BDI) and Beck’s Anxiety Inventory (BAI) tests wereapplied. Comparisons between groups were performed using oneway ANOVA, ANOVA-Welch, Kruskal-Wallis, Man-Whitney,and Fisher’s test.Results. It is observed that there was a statistically significant difference (difference 0,15† [95% CI, 7,07 ± 1,39]) in the way individuals assess their quality of life and the improvement in painintensity by VAS, especially in M1. The assessment of quality oflife among those who showed improvement was higher thanthose who did not improved.Conclusion. Application of tDCS in primary motor cortex (M1)produced an improvement in pain pattern in patients with postlaminectomy syndrome. Our data suggest that tDCS - a low-cost,technically simple and highly tolerable technique, is a promisingtechnique for management chronic pain in disorders such aspost-laminectomy syndrome.

[学科分类] 计算机科学（综合）