Minimally invasive pain therapy of the spine

Periradicular therapy

Facet joint block

Other image-guided pain therapies

Sympathicolysis is used to treat pain caused, for example, by chronic inflammation, circulatory disorders, tumors, or postoperative scar tissue, and where the usual therapy with pain medication is insufficient. In this case, parts of the sympathetic nerve cord are temporarily or permanently switched off.

These interventions are CT-assisted, in which a thin special needle is positioned directly on the corresponding nerve plexus (neck, thorax, abdomen, or pelvis) under local anesthesia, and a mixture of local anesthetic and highly concentrated alcohol solution is injected locally. The alcohol solution leads to chemical obliteration of the nerve plexus and thus to pain reduction. The local anesthetic leads to immediate pain reduction when indicated and performed correctly and thus has diagnostic value. For this reason, the procedure is often performed in two stages.

The treatment usually takes about 30 min and can be repeated if necessary or applied on both sides.