Cryoanalgesia to Treat Post-Amputation Phantom Limb Pain: A Department of Defense Funded Multicenter Study

Summary

When a limb is severed, pain perceived in the part of the body that no longer exists often develops and is called "phantom limb" pain. Unfortunately, phantom pain goes away in only 16% of afflicted individuals, and there is currently no reliable definitive treatment. The exact reason that phantom limb pain occurs is unclear, but when a nerve is cut-as happens with an amputation-changes occur in the brain and spinal cord that actually increase with worsening phantom pain. These abnormal changes may often be corrected by putting local anesthetic-called a "nerve block"-on the injured nerve, effectively keeping any "bad signals" from reaching the brain with a simultaneous resolution of the phantom limb pain. However, when the nerve block resolves after a few hours, the phantom pain returns. But, this demonstrates that the brain abnormalities-and phantom pain-that occur with an amputation are not necessarily fixed, and may be dependent upon the "bad" signals being sent from the injured nerve(s), suggesting that a very long peripheral nerve block-lasting many months rather than hours-may permanently reverse the abnormal changes in the brain, and provide definitive relief from phantom pain. A prolonged nerve block lasting a few months may be provided by freezing the nerve using a process called "cryoneurolysis". The ultimate objective of the proposed research study is to determine if cryoanalgesia is an effective treatment for intractable post-amputation phantom limb pain. The proposed research study will include subjects with an existing lower extremity amputation who experience intractable daily phantom limb pain. A single ultrasound-guided treatment of cryoneurolysis (or sham block-determined randomly like a flip of a coin) will be applied to the target nerve(s) involved with the phantom pain. Although not required, each subject may return four months later for the alternative treatment (if the first treatment is sham, then the second treatment would be cryoneurolysis) so that all participants have the option of receiving the active treatment. Subjects will be followed for a total of 12 months with data collected by telephone.

Conditions

• Post-Amputation Phantom Limb Pain

Interventions

DEVICE

Cryoneurolysis

Cryoneurolysis of the femoral and sciatic nerves (or their distal counterparts) in the residual limb: The cryoneurolysis device will be triggered using 3 cycles of 2-minute gas activation separated by 1-minute defrost periods. For active probes, the nitrous oxide will be deployed to the tip where a drop in temperature to -70°C will result in cryoneurolysis.

DEVICE

Sham Comparator

Sham cryoneurolysis of the femoral and sciatic nerves (or their distal counterparts) in the residual limb: The cryoneurolysis device will be triggered using 3 cycles of 2-minute gas activation separated by 1-minute defrost periods. However, for sham probes, the nitrous oxide is not deployed to the tip and therefore there is no drop in temperature resulting in cryoneurolysis.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• United States Department of Defense

  collaborator FED

• University of California, San Diego

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Brian M Ilfeld, MD, MS · University California San Diego Department of Anesthesiology

• Rodney Gabriel, MD, MAS · University California San Diego Department of Anesthesiology

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

TRIPLE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2018-03-23

Primary Completion

2021-08-17

Completion

2022-03-17

FDA Device

Yes

Countries

• United States

Study Locations