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Scrambler Therapy for the management of chronic pain

  • Review Article
  • Published:
Supportive Care in Cancer Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Chronic pain is a widespread and debilitating condition, encountered by physicians in a variety of practice settings. Although many pharmacologic and behavioral strategies exist for the management of this condition, treatment is often unsatisfactory. Scrambler Therapy is a novel, non-invasive pain modifying technique that utilizes trans-cutaneous electrical stimulation of pain fibers with the intent of re-organizing maladaptive signaling pathways. This review was conducted to further evaluate what is known regarding the mechanisms and mechanics of Scrambler Therapy and to investigate the preliminary data pertaining to the efficacy of this treatment modality.

Methods

The PubMed/Medline, SCOPUS, EMBASE, and Google Scholar databases were searched for all articles published on Scrambler Therapy prior to November 2015. All case studies and clinical trials were evaluated and reported in a descriptive manner.

Results

To date, 20 reports, of varying scientific quality, have been published regarding this device; all but one small study, published only as an abstract, provided results that appear positive.

Conclusion

The positive findings from preliminary studies with Scrambler Therapy support that this device provides benefit for patients with refractory pain syndromes. Larger, randomized studies are required to further evaluate the efficacy of this approach.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

    Neil Majithia

  2. Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Thomas J. Smith

  3. Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA

    Patrick J. Coyne

  4. Pain Medicine, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Salahadin Abdi

  5. Medical Oncology, Mayo Clinic, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA

    Deirdre R. Pachman, Carrie O’Neill, Kathryn J. Ruddy, Andreas Beutler & Charles L Loprinzi

  6. Neurology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

    Daniel Lachance

  7. Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

    Randy Shelerud, Andrea Cheville & Jeffrey R. Basford

  8. West Lynn Family Health Center, West Lynn, OR, USA

    David Farley

  9. Salve Regina University, Newport, RI, USA

    Frank Sparadeo

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  1. Neil Majithia
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  2. Thomas J. Smith
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  3. Patrick J. Coyne
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  4. Salahadin Abdi
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  15. Charles L Loprinzi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Charles L Loprinzi.

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Conflict of interest

Potential conflict of interest: Competitive Technologies provided Scrambler devices and supplies to Mayo Clinic, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Johns Hopkins for conducting research.

Financial support

Research reported in the publication was supported, in part, by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers UL1TR000135 and KL2TR000136-09 (Ruddy). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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Majithia, N., Smith, T.J., Coyne, P.J. et al. Scrambler Therapy for the management of chronic pain. Support Care Cancer 24, 2807–2814 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-016-3177-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-016-3177-3

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