REVIEW article
Front. Pain Res.
Sec. Non-Pharmacological Treatment of Pain
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpain.2025.1544909
Efficacy of Pulsed Radiofrequency Stimulation in Patients with chronic pain: A Narrative Review
Provisionally accepted
- 1Weifang People's Hospital, Weifang, China
- 2Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, Shandong Province, China
- 3School of Clinical Medicine, Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, Shandong Province, China
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The review aimed to evaluate the efficacy of pulsed radiofrequency (PRF) in treating chronic pain by analyzing recent literature.Study Design: This is a narrative review of relevant articles on the effectiveness of PRF for chronic pain.Search for papers published between November 2014 and November 2024 in the PubMed database that use PRF to treat chronic pain. We used "Pulsed radiofrequency, PRF, Pulsed RF for Pain, chronic pain, neuropathic pain, cancer pain, and osteoarthritis pain" as search terms. Inclusion criteria are as follows: (1) Patients are clearly diagnosed with chronic pain according to the standards of the International Association for the Study of Pain; (2) Pulsed radiofrequency is used to treat chronic pain;(3) Follow-up assessments are conducted to evaluate the degree of pain relief after PRF treatment; (4) Review articles and articles not related to the treatment of chronic pain are excluded.Results: Preliminary searches yielded 368 relevant articles. After reviewing the titles and abstracts and evaluating the full texts, we ultimately included 80 articles. These articles cover research on pulsed radiofrequency treatment for various chronic pain conditions, including neuropathic pain, osteoarthritis pain, and cancer pain. The study types are diverse, including randomized controlled trials, cohort studies, and case reports. The publication dates of the articles range from 2014 to 2024, ensuring the timeliness and comprehensiveness of the research findings, which reflect the latest advancements and outcomes in the field of pulsed radiofrequency treatment for chronic pain.Limitations: This review did not include studies indexed in databases other than PubMed.This article reviews the research progress of pulsed radiofrequency technology in the field of chronic pain treatment. By searching and analyzing relevant literature from recent years, it summarizes the research findings on the mechanisms of PRF in treating chronic pain, its clinical applications, efficacy evaluation, and safety, and discusses future research directions. This is helpful for clinical physicians to develop more scientific treatment plans when managing chronic pain patients.
Keywords: Pulsed radiofrequency, Chronic Pain, mechanism of action, clinical citation, Efficacy assessment
Received: 13 Dec 2024; Accepted: 15 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lin, Lingling, LV, Chu, Tian and Wang. 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: Bin Wang, School of Clinical Medicine, Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, 261053, Shandong 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.