Doctors are using sound waves to numb the nerves, which stimulate back pain. The new non-invasive method produces heat that zaps tissue and turns off nerves in the bones of the spine. A significant cause of back pain is problems with the facet joints, small weight bearing joints located in pairs along the back from neck to tail bone.
Every facet joint is encircled by cartilage and swathed by a capsule of ligaments, which protect it from wear and tear. However, despite this protection joints are still prone to damage from routine activities like bending and lifting. The age related damage also causes arthritis of facet joints.
The experts believe that damaged facet joints are accountable for forty-five percent cases of lower back pain. This pain usually becomes worse after resting and provoked by bending backwards or sideways. The treatment for the condition includes painkillers and gentle exercise to steroid injection into the spine that can diminish inflammation and pain.
Another treatment alternative involves doctors funneling a flexible probe beneath the skin to the facet joints and using high energy radio waves, delivered through the probe, to heat the small nerves around the joints that carry the pain signals to the brain. This temperature is high enough to numb the nerve, but not great enough to damage surrounding tissue.
Doctors say it is similar to focusing a beam of sunlight with a magnifying glass. The new technology, called Magnetic Resonance-guided Focused Ultrasound Surgery treatment uses the same theory, but does not involve any surgical procedures. It allows surgeons to heat the nerves from outside the body, without even breaking the skin.
The technology involves placing patients into a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner, which is used commonly and looks like a torpedo tube. This scanner allows the doctors to control and monitor the therapy and observe if the nerves are heating to normal body temperature.
A gadget that discharges sound waves is placed under the platform the patient lies on in the scanner, positioned under their lower back. Once in the scanner, it begins to send beams of ultrasound to the nerves of the facet joints. The doctors observe the images from the body scanner and vigilantly position the beams.
The ultrasounds beams are of low energy therefore do not damage healthy tissue. But, the beams are angled by the doctors so that they all cross over each other at the position of the facet joints. The point at which they cross receives a high amount of energy and this generates a rise in temperature.
The treatment has trialed at St Mary’s Hospital, London, on fifteen patients of an average age of forty-eight. Each treatment took around ninety minutes and over a ten-month period. Each patient had around twenty-one sessions. It caused sixty-two percent reductions in back pain and fifty-five percent reductions in disability.