Background: Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is often an option of last resort for patients with post-laminectomy syndrome or an alternative option for patients with complex regional pain syndrome, chronic nonsurgical low back pain, or painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy when conservative management has failed. Although SCS is a helpful option, it is not without complications that can frequently lead to explantation of the SCS device and dissatisfaction with the treatment. Furthermore, as with any technology, SCS has potential issues that may lead to patient frustration and ultimately result in patient noncompliance and lack of follow-up visits.
Objectives: The goals of this study are to explore the magnitude of and reasons for patient loss to follow-up after SCS device implantation.
Study design: A cross-sectional phone survey.
Setting: A tertiary-care academic hospital.
Methods: A cross-sectional phone survey was performed on 49 patients who were deemed lost to follow-up when they did not return to the clinic one month after being implanted with permanent SCS devices at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Patients were administered an institutional review board-approved questionnaire exploring their reasons for not returning to the clinic.
Results: Over a 5-year period, 257 patients underwent full implantation of an SCS device. Of the 49 patients lost to follow-up, 24 were able to be contacted, and they completed the questionnaire. Twenty of the patients continued to use the SCS device but were lost to follow-up for the following reasons: 58% (14/24) due to improvement of pain, 13% (3/24) due to minimal improvement in pain control, 4% (1/24) due to other urgent health conditions, and 8% (2/24) due to patient noncompliance and missing follow-up appointments (4/24). Four patients discontinued using the SCS device after an average of 1.5 years +/- one year, 12% (3/24) due to inadequate pain control and 4% (1/24) due to inability to recharge the device (1/24). Of these patients, 2 of the 4 contacted their SCS representatives for help with troubleshooting prior to discontinuation. None of the patients was explanted.
Limitations: The main limitation of this study was the incompletion rate, which was 51.0% (25 out of 49 patients).
Conclusions: This paper, the first cross-sectional study of loss to follow-up among patients who are implanted with SCS devices, identifies that up to 19% of patients are quickly lost to follow-up after implantation. Only half of the patients in this study could be reached, with most successfully using their device for meaningful pain control, but a substantial number of patients likely required additional device optimization for pain relief.
Keywords: chronic pain; cross-sectional study; neuromodulation; pain relief; phone survey; single center; spinal cord stimulation; Loss to follow-up.