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Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) can provide long-term pain relief for various chronic pain conditions, but some patients have no relief with trial stimulation or lose efficacy over time. To “salvage” relief in patients who do not respond or have lost efficacy, alternative stimulation paradigms or anatomical targets can be considered. Dorsal root ganglion stimulation (DRG-S) has a different mechanism of action and anatomical target than SCS.

Dorsal root ganglion stimulation (DRG-S) is a form of neuromodulation used to treat chronic pain. A spinal cord stimulation (SCS) method with paresthesia-free waveform used in the dorsal columns, burst-SCS, recently demonstrated efficacy using intermittent stimulation, where stimulation is cycled on and off for set durations. Tonic SCS is a paresthesia-based therapy that is ineffective at sub-perception levels and when delivered in a cycled manner. DRG-S also uses a tonic waveform, yet unlike tonic SCS, it is effective at sub-perception levels. This study aimed to determine whether the cycling of stimulation at the DRG could maintain DRG-S efficacy.

Dorsal root ganglion stimulation (DRG-S) is a novel therapy to treat chronic pain. It has shown efficacy when delivered intermittently, suggesting a delayed washout effect exists. To measure the washout period, and to determine whether there are differences in washout times among different types of treated pain, we measured the time for pain to return at the end of the patients’ one-week DRG stimulation trials.