Abbott touts effective pain management, lower energy use in BurstDR SCS study results

Abbott (NYSE:ABT) late last week released results from a study of its BurstDR spinal cord stimulation technology, touting that it provided as effective pain relief as standard SCS despite providing lower-energy, intermittent stimulation known as “microdosing,” for patients with chronic intractable pain.

Results from the BOLD study were presented at the 22nd Annual North American Neuromodulation Society Meeting in Las Vegas, the Chicago-area medtech company said.

All patients in the BOLD trial reported experiencing pain relief with less than six hours of battery use per day while being treated with BurstDR, with 43% of patients reporting pain relief with less than two hours of battery use.

Abbott said that data from the trial may indicate a potential strategy for prolonging SCS battery life while still maintaining optimal pain relief, and could improve the viability of recharge-free SCS devices.

“While stimulation with BurstDR has been shown to provide superior efficacy compared to traditional stimulation in previous studies, battery consumption is an important consideration for physicians as we look to maximize the life of the devices for our patients and control their pain. This new data reinforces the benefits of BurstDR stimulation but also shows that microdosing BurstDR stimulation may help us extend device battery life for patients, which may help improve patient satisfaction with their SCS therapy,” primary investigator Dr. Timothy Deer of Charleston W.V.’s The Spine and Nerve Center of the Virginias said in a press release.

In a separate study, dubbed BURST(able), data indicated that patients who did not receive effective pain relief from their previous SCS therapy found restored pain control and reduced opioid dependency after switching to one of Abbott’s BurstDR waveform devices, the company said.

The BURST(able) trial was non-industry sponsored, and evaluated patients experiencing loss of pain relief from their non-Abbott SCS systems who switched to a BurstDR waveform device. Of the patients in the trial who were surgically implanted with the new device, 60% to 72% reported a reduction in pain and 41% to 52% a reduction in opiate consumption, the company said.

“As a pain specialist, one of the most difficult things to combat is patients developing a tolerance to their therapy and seeing SCS therapy lose efficacy over time. Loss of efficacy often leads to patients reverting back to chronic opioid therapy or left with no good alternative therapy options. I’m encouraged to see that, by switching to Abbott’s BurstDR stimulation, we can offer patients a neuromodulation treatment that is safe and effective while reducing reliance on opioid medication, regardless of their prior treatment,” primary investigator Dr. Corey Hunter of the Ainsworth Institute of Pain Management said in a prepared release.

“BurstDR stimulation has been used clinically now for many years and these latest data indicate that we’ve just scratched the surface of what’s possible. Our goal is to continue studying BurstDR stimulation to maximize its potential, even at extremely low doses, and allow people with chronic pain to live their best lives without the burden of recharging their devices and the fear of losing efficacy over time,” Abbott chronic pain therapies medical director Dr. Allen Burton said in a prepared statement.

Today, Abbott said that it won FDA approval for its TactiCath Sensor Enabled contact force ablation catheter intended for use in treating atrial fibrillation.

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