[Treatment of cancer pain with the percutaneous electrocoagulation of spinal nerves]

To our knowledge, this is the first report of high-frequency thermocoagulation applied to the spinal root. We treated 34 patients suffering from cancer pain with this technique. Among these patients, cancer pain occurred due to intrapelvic metastasis in 11 patients, and 13 complained of chest pain due to cancer. Every patient was considered to have good or excellent response when his or her pain score was reduced to 6 points or less from the score before thermocoagulation; 10 points. Based on this criterion, 54.5% and 30.8% of the above-mentioned patients showed good and excellent responses respectively one month after treatment. This technique, therefore, was considered to be effective with less side effects compared with other nerve blocking techniques.