Doctor Fabio Intelligente is the coordinator of the Pain Therapy Unit at Humanitas Research Hospital.
His main areas of interests are the treatment of chronic pain both oncological and non-oncological. He focuses on pharmacological therapy, interventional and minimally invasive treatments with antalgic purpose.
Dr. Intelligente uses and develops infiltrative and minimally invasive ultrasound-guided technologies. He carries out research activities on integrated pharmacological, interventional and rehabilitative protocols for the treatment of painful syndromes, such as low back pain, sciatica and neuropathy.
He presented a new technique to treat lumbosciatalgia (low back pain) at the 22nd World Congress of the IASP (International Association for the Study of Pain).
The given technique combines two procedures: one is the lysis (or dissolution) of the adhesions with a catheter and the other is the neuromodulation with radiofrequency of dorsal roots’ ganglia, that is the application of high frequency radio waves used to positively “influence” the behaviour of the nerve.
It could be potentially recommended for any cases of persistent and resistant to classic treatments lumbosciatalgical pain or when the surgical intervention is not suggested or also when the patient prefers to avoid the risks associated to the surgery and also when a surgery, even if well performed, does not produce the desired effect on the pain. However, the possible inefficacy of the given treatment does not preclude the performance of an eventual surgical intervention.
The advantages of the treatment are multiple: first of all, the use of two antalgic techniques; secondly, the possibility of treatment in a selective way of all the target levels, also the levels that were not reachable with the sacral technique and finally, the better safety, given by the fact that less “road” is covered within sensitive areas.
