Evaluation of an Innovative Spinal Cord Stimulator Platform for the Treatment of Chronic Pain

Abstract

Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is an ever-evolving therapy for the treatment of chronic pain. Currently, there are four main companies offering a variety of options for SCS. The Intellis™ system is the latest offering from Medtronic (MN, USA). Intellis offers the smallest implantable SCS pulse generator available and is capable of multiple different modes of stimulation, some of which can be run simultaneously. With an intrinsic accelerometer, the device is capable of sensing various patient positions and can automatically adjust stimulation intensity. Intellis also offers the most comprehensive MRI conditionality to date. Additionally, the new Samsung/Android^® (Seoul, South Korea) clinician programmer allows for easier programming than previous Medtronic programing systems. The programer can also generate patient activity and usage reports from implantable pulse generator data.

Keywords::

• adaptive stimulation
• high density
• high frequency
• outcomes reporting
• spinal cord stimulation
• workflow

Company review

In addition to the peer-review process, with the author’s consent, the manufacturer of the product discussed in this article was given the opportunity to review the manuscript for factual accuracy. Changes were made by the author at their discretion and based on scientific or editorial merit only. The author maintained full control over the manuscript, including content, wording and conclusion.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Medtronic Intellis™ team for their provision of publically available technical documents about the Intellis platform.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors are employees of the Duke University Health System. L Roy serves as a consultant for Medtronic, Inc. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.