Spinal cord stimulation surgical technique for the nonsurgically trained

The objective of this paper is to educate physicians who implant spinal cord stimulators in current surgical techniques. Many implanters have not gone through formal surgical residencies and learn their surgical techniques during a one year Fellowship or from proctoring experience. This paper utilizes current concepts from the literature to reinforce appropriate surgical practices, which are applicable to surgeons as well as interventional pain physicians. This should be a valuable resource for all Fellows whether they are in surgical programs or pain fellowship programs. In addition, a more detailed presentation is made at the end of this paper on a proposed simple one-incision surgical technique for implantation of small internal pulse generators. This is the first publication in the literature describing such a technique and may be useful for less-experienced implanters, as well as conferring potential advantages in surgical technique.