Percutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation As Alternative To Nerve Blocks In Anesthesia, Pain Medicine And Rehabilitation Of Nonspecific Chronic Pain

Within the broad spectrum of chronic pain conditions, low back pain (LBP) is the leading cause of years lived with disability worldwide and one of the largest contributors to the global disease burden. According to the latest Global Burden of Disease analysis, approximately 620 million people suffered from LBP in 2020. Projections for the coming decades are not encouraging since, by 2050, the number of affected individuals is expected to rise to 843 million, a 36.4% increase compared to 2020. This growth will be mainly driven by population increase and aging, with the sharpest rises expected in Asia and Africa.

Beyond its direct health consequences, LBP imposes a considerable economic burden on both individuals and societies, as its highest incidence occurs during the most productive working years (approximately 45-55 years old). In the USA alone, direct costs related to spinal disorders reached USD 315 billion between 2012 and 2014, in addition to productivity losses estimated in hundreds of millions of workdays each year. Considering its growing prevalence and socioeconomic implications, LBP is regarded as a global health priority.

LBP may originate from a wide variety of musculoskeletal, neurological, or visceral conditions, and its clinical expression may combine nociceptive mechanisms (related to tissue injury or stimulation of lumbar structures), neuropathic mechanisms (involving lesions or disease of the somatosensory system), and nociplastic mechanisms (involving altered nociceptive processing without structural lesions, often with central sensitization and descending inhibitory dysfunction).

Current clinical frameworks establish that in up to 90% of patients, it is not possible to identify a clear anatomopathological pain source (thus defined as non-specific LBP). The main challenge lies in identifying which structures (i.e., intervertebral discs, facet /zygapophyseal joints, sacroiliac joints, ligaments, or myofascial tissues) are the nociceptive sources. The absence of a defined structural correlate (as most structural abnormalities are also frequent in asymptomatic individuals) largely explains the high recurrence and chronicity rates, as well as the frequency of ineffective treatments, unjustified surgeries, and the economic impact of healthcare utilization without a clearly established etiology. Consequently, diagnosis in these patients is essentially clinical and based on exclusion criteria, with a therapeutic focus on symptom modulation and functional recovery rather than on identifying and correcting a single structural lesion.

Although scientific evidence consistently supports the high percentage of non-specific LBP cases and discourage routine imaging in such patients, this practice remains common in hospital care. It is estimated that 30% to 55% of imaging studies requested for LBP are unnecessary or not clinically indicated. The indiscriminate use of imaging not only generates unnecessary costs and delays, but also exposes patients to unjustified radiation and overdiagnosis risk. For example, the prevalence of disc protrusions in asymptomatic individuals increases from 30% at age 20 to 84% at age 80, which may lead to misinterpreting benign degenerative changes as pathological, fueling overtreatment and patient anxiety.

Consequently, this practice directly impacts the high rate of unnecessary spinal surgeries. It is estimated that up to 60% of spinal surgeries are performed unnecessarily, without clear indications, neurological deficits, or relevant radiographic findings. These procedures not only expose patients to avoidable risks with limited effectiveness, but also represent an annual cost of USD 4 billion in the USA.

In the absence of clinical or radiological criteria with sufficient diagnostic precision, international clinical practice guidelines, such as those of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians, recommend diagnostic anesthetic blocks as the reference procedure to confirm the nociceptive source (with evidence level I-II and moderate to strong recommendation strength). These diagnostic blocks consist of controlled injections of local anesthetics to determine the involvement of specific structures depending on the patient's pain relief response. For example, the facet joint can be functionally identified as the pain source through controlled infiltration of local anesthetic into the medial branches of the dorsal rami that innervate the lumbar facets. If a transient and reproducible analgesic response occurs after the block (particularly when comparative blocks with anesthetics of different duration are used) the diagnosis of facet joint syndrome is confirmed, supporting the appropriateness of subsequent interventions.

Despite their strong recommendation level, these procedures are not free of complications and risks, associated with large-gauge needles and local anesthetic administration. Common complications include peripheral nerve injury from direct mechanical trauma, intrafascicular injection, ischemia, or anesthetic neurotoxicity, with reported incidences of transient neuropathic symptoms ranging from 0% to 41%, and permanent injury below 1%. Other potential complications include systemic toxicity of local anesthetics (potentially severe if intravascular injection occurs), local infection or abscess formation, and, less frequently, nerve compression due to fibrosis or hematoma. Risk factors such as middle age (40-65 years), smoking, pre-existing neuropathy, or metabolic diseases (e.g., diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) increase susceptibility to neural damage. Although ultrasound-guided techniques have substantially reduced the risk of major events, they do not eliminate the possibility of post-block neuropathies or adverse anesthetic reactions.

PENS constitutes a minimally invasive alternative that avoids corticosteroids and anesthetics, reduces exposure to large-volume injectables, and produces reproducible analgesic responses, useful as a functional test supporting the diagnostic hypothesis, while also serving as a therapeutic option within a multimodal pain management approach. This technique applies low- or high-frequency electrical currents (2-100 Hz) via fine needles, aiming to activate large-diameter myelinated afferent fibers and modulate nociceptive transmission at the spinal level. It has been shown to induce endogenous analgesic mechanisms through opioid neurotransmitter (µ, δ, κ) release and activation of descending inhibitory pathways, reducing central sensitization and improving conditioned pain modulation. These neurophysiological effects explain its capacity to reduce primary and secondary hyperalgesia observed in chronic musculoskeletal syndromes, particularly in the short term. Indeed, systematic reviews and meta-analyses report that PENS reduces pain and disability compared to placebo and other interventions.

These properties suggest that PENS may represent a feasible and safe alternative to anesthetic blocks for modulating facet-origin lumbar pain, offering an option that eliminates the risks associated with drugs used in blocks (e.g., systemic toxicity of local anesthetics, allergic reactions, systemic corticosteroid effects, hyperglycemia, adrenal suppression) by not requiring substance injection. From a mechanical perspective, PENS uses solid fine-gauge needles (≈0.25-0.30 mm; 32-34G), significantly thinner than those typically used for medial branch blocks (≈22-25G; 0.5-0.7 mm), thereby reducing tissue trauma, hematoma risk, and nerve injury probability. The absence of injectables also decreases the risk of local anesthetic systemic toxicity and prevents intra-articular or perineural pressure increases.

In terms of practical safety, adverse events with PENS are usually mild and self-limited (transient localized pain, small bruising, occasional vasovagal reactions), with a particularly favorable profile in patients with comorbidities where blocks carry higher risk (e.g., poorly controlled diabetes, prior adverse reactions to anesthetics, or contraindications to corticosteroids). With aseptic technique and ultrasound guidance when appropriate, PENS offers a minimally invasive alternative that preserves the diagnostic/therapeutic modulation capability over the facet target, while substantially reducing pharmacological and mechanical risks associated with conventional blocks.

Therefore, the general objective is to evaluate PENS as a diagnostic alternative not inferior to nerve blocks and as a therapeutic modality in chronic LBP of suspected facet origin, to establish its optimal dosage, and to assess its safety, resource utilization, and cost-utility in multicenter outpatient settings.