Background and Aims Minimally invasive interventional pain procedures, such as thermal radiofrequency (TRF) ablation, have steadily progressed to become a key segment of the therapeutic armamentarium now available to the chronic pain patient population. Here, we report real world-collected outcomes from a study of patients treated with TRF for management of chronic pain.

Methods This is a real-world, retrospective, observational, case-series study of patients in Europe who used a device capable of thermal radiofrequency ablation (Boston Scientific, Marlborough, MA, USA) for treatment of chronic pain. Key data and clinical assessments include demographic characteristics, pain diagnosis, baseline and post-treatment pain scores, and percent pain relief.

Results Fifty-four patients have been assessed to date with an average age of 58.2 ± 17.2 years who received thermal RF for treatment of chronic pain. Significant improvement (p<0.0001) in pain scores was noted at post-procedure and last follow-up. A 5.5-point NRS score improvement (8.1 [baseline] → 2.6) was noted at last follow-up (mean = 314.9 ± 233.7 days, median 224 days). A high responder rate (proportion of patients with >50% pain relief) post-procedure at last follow-up was also observed (79.5%; 43/54).

Conclusions The data collected from this clinical investigation aims to accrue additional real-world evidence regarding the use of TRF as a strategy for use in the treatment of chronic pain.