Non-surgery
Spine Center > Non-surgery
Percutaneous Epidural Neuroplasty (PEN)
PEN developed by Professor GB Racz in Texas Tech University is a surgical procedure
which can dramatically mitigate pain by blocking inflammable substances and
removing them adhered around the nerves by inserting medicine into the area around
the compressed nerves.
Indications
This surgery is especially good for those who are suffering from lumbar disc herniation but do not want surgical operation and effective in reliving post-surgical pain syndromes. It can be applied to the following diseases:
- Spinal stenosis
- Partial cancer pain
- Lumbar disc herniation
- Pain after nerve damage caused by car accident
- Spinal compression fracture
- Degenerative spine disease
- Pain syndrome after spinal surgery
Procedure
- Local anesthesia administered
- The procedure begins with the patient lying face-down.
- Insert a thin needle (spinal needle tube) through a hole in the skin under the coccyx (sacral hiatus) using the X-ray fluoroscope (C-arm). Then, pass down the 1mm-thin tube up to the pain area.
- Check the area to be operated using contrast medium.
- Administer medicine through the thin tube.
- Keep the thin tube through which 2nd medicine would be administered on the next day in the epidural space and fix it to the skin. Finish the surgery.
- On the following day, administer 2nd medicine and remove the tube.
Advantages
- Local anesthesia → no diverse complications caused by general anesthesia
- Good for those who need to have a surgery but are afraid of doing it
- No scar
- After the 2nd medicine is administered on the following day, a patient can be discharged.
- Applicable to elderly patients well
- Almost no damage on normal tissues through removal of the exact cause of the pain through the 1mm-thin tube
'SH' is the end of coccyx, through which a thin needle (1.3cm in diameter, special spinal needle tube) is inserted. A tube is inserted into the neural tube through sacral hiatus, and medicine is passed down through this tube.