COOLIEF (Cooled Radiofrequency) treatment for Pain?
The following is an interview with Lisa Kudlacz, Vice President and General Manager, Interventional Pain Management at Halyard Health, regarding the company’s COOLIEF* (Cooled Radiofrequency) treatment for different types of pain.
How has osteoarthritis knee pain been treated traditionally?
Traditionally, patients with OA of knee are in pain for an extended period of time before they move to procedures such as surgery. During this period of time, their pain is treated with drugs, opioids and injections.
Steroids and Opioids show some efficacy, right?
Medication provides only short-term relief and comes with serious risks, which include opioid abuse and dependence. According to the Mayo Clinic, one in four patients prescribed opioid painkillers is at risk to progress to episodic or long-term prescription use. Healthcare providers are becoming more conservative in the use of opioids to reduce associated complications such as nausea, respiratory depression, and even death. Steroid injections can provide relief for a short period of time, but may have to be repeated for continued pain relief, which can cause break down in surrounding tissue.
Is OA Related knee pain unique or can it present as something else-in other words, can it be misdiagnosed?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, OA affects over 30 million adults in the U.S. and is caused by the damage and breakdown of cartilage between bones that can lead to joint pain, swelling and stiffness. The prevalence of OA is on the rise as both the age and weight of Americans continue to increase, with an estimated 10% to 15% of all adults aged over 60 have some degree of OA. Proper and correct treatment of OA is imperative in ensuring good patient outcomes.
Does your product delay the need for replacement surgery?
Osteoarthritis (OA) affects over 30 million adults in the U.S., and knees are among the most common joints impacted. Total knee replacements are often used as a solution for patients with chronic knee pain from degenerative conditions, but surgery isn’t always an option. In fact, based on conversations with dozens of Orthopedic Surgeons, 50-80% of their patients are chronic cases, but are not immediate candidates for surgery. In fact, due to BMI, age, co-morbidities, invasiveness, or lack of necessary support systems, OA patients typically suffer from chronic pain up to nine years before having knee replacement surgery.
As the first and only FDA-cleared radiofrequency treatment for the relief of osteoarthritis knee pain, COOLIEF* Cooled Radiofrequency fills the gap between short-term pain relief and surgery by delivering a minimally invasive, non-narcotic and long lasting pain relief solution for patients who are either not good candidates for surgery, must delay surgery, or who still suffer from persistent pain after replacement surgery.
What’s different about your treatment and how long does it last?
COOLIEF Cooled Radiofrequency (Cooled RF) is the first and only RF treatment to be FDA cleared specifically to relieve osteoarthritis (OA) knee pain. COOLIEF is the only currently known minimally-invasive, thermal radiofrequency pain management system using water-cooled technology to safely deactivate pain-causing sensory nerves. According to a recently conducted clinical study conducted among patients suffering from knee pain caused by osteoarthritis, results demonstrated that minimally-invasive, non-narcotic COOLIEF Cooled RF provides significantly greater and longer-lasting pain relief, improved physical function and higher patient satisfaction than intra-articular steroid injections.
For what other indications orthopedic indications is it approved?
Along with OA of the knee, COOLIEF is also indicated for chronic back, neck and hip pain. Patients can find out if they are a candidate for COOLIEF by consulting with a qualified physician. To find a COOLIEF trained physician in their area, patients can visit www.mycoolief.com/find-a-physician.aspx.
We’d be interested to hear if YOU have had first hand experience with COOLIEF, and what your experience was.
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Your link, https://www.mycoolief.com/find-a-physician.aspx., no longer works. Any other suggestions? Also, with traditional RF ablation, you can only do 1 medial cervical nerve at a time. You then have to wait a very painful 4-6 weeks before that nerve is deadened and then have the other side of the neck done. Is this the same with this RF procedure? And how long does pain relief last with this? Traditional RF only lasts 9-12 months.
I could not get past the mayo conclusion of 25% of patients prescribed opioids becoming “users”., either episodic or long term. Pardon my scepticism, but that would basically mean 25% of the entire population. Where do these charlatans get their information from? Obviously the scientific method takes to much time, effort and common sense to use. Common sense, now there is a radical idea!! (insert rolling eye emoji)
They are still using Opiophobia to peddle another Proprietary “Treatment’ that is only slightly better than Steroid Injections. The Steroid Injections have been proven to be not very effective, Expensive and in some cases dangerous. These contorted advertising pieces are deliberately misleading. No “Research” was done with the people with these types of knee injuries, and Opiates. They removed quality of life, activity levels, and engagement in everyday activities as indicators of “improvement” They deliberately compared these procedure to Steroid Injections, because they were not very effective. This lowers the bar for perceived improvement, guaranteeing profitability whether the procedures work or not.
In general the older people with Knee OA will watch as their quality of life slips away for years, depending on their Income and Insurance of course. As they deal with the untreated pain they will avoid activity and become more depressed, reconditioned and isolated. In cases where the pain sufferer is in their 70’s, as the “Treatment” is postponed, they will very likely develop other health issues from the inability to engage in life as they once had. Then by the time they have the surgery, their lives have already been limited.
The people that would have seen a benefit from opiates, were deliberately left out of the “Research.” What we have here is a “better’ than Steroids, when we remove facts, like the Failure Rate of these Knee Surgeries, the effectiveness of the Steroid Injections, and the benefits of Opiates for some of the people with these conditions. The average 70 year old that saw a benefit from Opiates, rather than more painful and intrusive Procedures, and can no longer engage in life won’t get mentioned here.
It would be great that some of these things were paid for by insurance.