Percutaneous Cervical Cordotomy

Cordotomy should be reserved for patients with intractable pain resistant to conservative treatment that is not of a dysaesthetic type. The high cervical percutaneous technique permits exploitation of the principles of stereotactic surgery, especially physiological localization of the lesion site. The induction by 100 Hz stimulation of a warm or cool tingling in some portion of the contralateral half of the body without muscle tetanization ensures location within the spinothalamic tract while attention to the somatotopographic organization of the responses permits a certain degree of tailoring of the extent of analgesia to the patient's needs. During 264 consecutive procedures the spinothalamic tract was successfully located in 99% with a 0.3% incidence of significant persistent paresis.