SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Headache and Neurogenic Pain
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1586995
Efficacy and safety of short-term spinal cord stimulation and pulsed radiofrequency in the treatment of postherpetic neuralgia: A meta-analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Anesthesiology, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, Sichuan Province, China
- 2Department of Anesthesiology, the People's Hospital of Jianyang, Jianyang, Sichuan Province, China
- 3Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
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Objective: This study aimed to explore the efficacy and safety of short-term Spinal Cord Stimulation (stSCS) and Pulsed Radiofrequency (PRF) in the treatment of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN).We searched the PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Embase, China Biological Medicine Database (CBM-disc), Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang, and VIP databases for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from the establishment of the database to August 1, 2024. Review Manager 5.4 and Stata 18.0 were used for the meta-analysis.In total, eight randomized controlled trials comprising 479 patients were included. Meta-analysis showed that compared with PRF, stSCS had better pain relief (P < 0.01), lower Pain Rating Index Affective (PRI-A) score (P < 0.01), lower Pain Rating Index Sensory (PRI-S) score (P = 0.002), better sleep quality (P = 0.02), higher effective rate (P < 0.01), and lower incidence of postoperative complications (P = 0.007). However, complete remission rate (P = 0.24) after the two treatment methods were similar between the two groups. Moreover, stSCS treatment is more expensive.In general, stSCS is a more effective and safe method for the treatment of PHN, but its high cost is an unavoidable problem. Each method has advantages and disadvantages that should be considered comprehensively in clinical practice.
Keywords: Meta-analysis, Pulsed radiofrequency, postherpetic neuralgia, Spinal Cord Stimulation, Treatment
Received: 03 Mar 2025; Accepted: 22 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Weng, Liu, Jiang, Wu, Chen, Duan and Zhong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xiaoxia Duan, Department of Anesthesiology, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, Sichuan Province, China
Qing Zhong, Department of Anesthesiology, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, Sichuan Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.