Cryoneurolysis (nerve freezing) treatments, combined with traditional pain management therapies, may improve outcomes for patients undergoing total knee replacement (TKR) surgery, according to a recent study.

The preliminary retrospective study was led by Vinod Dasa, MD, associate professor of clinical orthopaedics at Louisiana State University Health New Orleans School of Medicine. Results were published recently in the journal, The Knee.

The study was performed among 100 patients with advanced osteoarthritis requiring total knee replacement in Dasa’s orthopaedic practice. All were similar in terms of gender, age, and body mass index.  Among the patient group, 50 were treated with standard multiple pain management options (control group), and 50 underwent cryneurolysis 5 days prior to surgery via an FDA-approved handheld device in addition to multimodal pain management (treatment group), explains a media release from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center.

“Patients in the treatment group had significantly shorter hospital stays, were prescribed significantly fewer opioids during the first 12 weeks postoperatively, and had significantly fewer knee symptoms,” Dasa notes in the release.

In addition, according to the study, only 6% of patients treated with cryoneurolysis prior to surgery stayed in the hospital for 2 or more days compared to 67% of patients who did not receive this treatment. Similarly, almost half of patients treated with cryoneurolysis were discharged on the same day of surgery compared with only 14% in the control group, per the release.

The release notes that the treatment group patients’ shorter length of stay may be due to better local control of pain and a reduced need for nerve blocks that can impair motor function, as well as reduced use of opioids for pain control, which allows patients to walk and function well enough to go home sooner.

[Source(s): Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Science Daily]