DRX9000 for treating spinal injury

Valicec · 06-09-2008 2:56pm #1

Has anbody heard of or used the DRX9000 technology for treating back disk injuries? There is a clinic called Brooklands in Longford which used this treatment which is claimed to be cutting edge. Would like to know if anyone knows how effective it is?

Vorsprung · 06-09-2008 8:25pm

A quick PubMed search (basically a search of all the medical journals) shows one study on that, the abstract of which reads:

Treatment of 94 outpatients with chronic discogenic low back pain with the DRX9000: a retrospective chart review.
Macario A, Richmond C, Auster M, Pergolizzi JV.

Department of Anesthesia and Health Research & Policy, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305-5640, USA. amaca@stanford.edu

BACKGROUND: This study's goal was a retrospective chart audit of 100 outpatients with discogenic low back pain (LBP) lasting more than 12 weeks treated with a 2-month course of motorized spinal decompression via the DRX9000 (Axiom Worldwide, Tampa, FL, U.S.A.). METHODS: Patients at a convenience sample of four clinics received 30-minute DRX9000 sessions daily for the first 2 weeks tapering to 1 session/week. Treatment protocol included lumbar stretching, myofascial release, or heat prior to treatment, with ice and/or muscle stimulation afterwards. Primary outcome was verbal numerical pain intensity rating (NRS) 0 to 10 before and after the 8-week treatment. RESULTS: Of the 100 initial subjects, three withdrew their protected health information, and three were excluded because their LBP duration was less than 12 weeks. The remaining 94 subjects (63% female, 95% white, age = 55 (SD 16) year, 52% employed, 41% retired, LBP median duration of 260 weeks) had diagnoses of herniated disc (73% of patients), degenerative disc disease (68%), or both (27%). Mean NRS equaled 6.05 (SD 2.3) at presentation and decreased significantly to 0.89 (SD 1.15) at end of 8-week treatment (P < 0.0001). Analgesic use also appeared to decrease (charts with data = 20) and Activities of Daily Living improved (charts with data = 38). Follow-up (mean 31 weeks) on 29/94 patients reported mean 83% LBP improvement, NRS of 1.7 (SD 1.15), and satisfaction of 8.55/10 (median 9). CONCLUSIONS: This retrospective chart audit provides preliminary data that chronic LBP may improve with DRX9000 spinal decompression. Randomized double-blind trials are needed to measure the efficacy of such systems.

So it seems there was some improvement, but you have to be wary for a few reasons:

1) This is a small study 100 patients with lower back pain is a drop in the ocean when you look at how many people suffer with this condition.

2) It was performed retrospectively (ie they looked at patients already treated). Best practice for studies is to do it prospectively, ie decide how the study will work, then recruit patients to it.

2) As it says at the end there, more trials are needed - one study merely suggests an outcome. Randomised double blind studies - the gold standard trial - need to be performed to properly evaluate a treatment's efficacy vs other treatments/placebo.

Valicec · 07-09-2008 1:06am

Forgive me for asking, L5 and S1 are the main areas affected for me just as an FYI. My understanding of that small statistical analysis is that only 29 of 94 patients reported an 80+% improvement. So even if this is only out of lets say 94 patients, only 29 reported a 50% improvement. Please forgive me if I misinterpreted the extract. I do understand however that out of 100 patients the data would be difficult to have alot of faith in especially since the course of treatment would set me back almost 5k euros. Thank you so much for your response by the way. I found that most of the google information was overly optimistic which made me suspicious that they were actually advertisments.