[Our experience with spinothalamic chordotomy in severe painful syndromes of the lower extremities]

Treatment of severe pains in spite of the progress in our knowledge has not yet achieved a fully satisfactory solution. This is due to the complexity of the nervous structures related to conduction and central integration of painful stimulations. The A.A., after giving a survey of the different types of surgical operations that can be done for pain therapy, underline the spino-thalamic therapy also mentioning some technical solution of particular relevance. They then give the results acquired with spino-thalamic cordotomy in 59 subjects operated on because of severe pains of the lower limbs not caused by tumoral origins. Subjects have been divided according to their ethiology. Our statistical data show that spino-thalamic cordotomy still remains the operation which give the best results provided that data evaluation is made within six months after surgery.