Experience with dorsal column stimulation (DCS) in the operative treatment of chronic intractable pain.

The results of DCS in 50 patients are altogether favourable; they are better for the group of amputation and phantom pain than for the group of peripheral nerve lesions. For patients with malignoma pain no valid comment can be given. The influence of DCS is mostly immediate in bouts of acute pain, slower in chronic permanent pain, where a longer period of stimulation is needed. The observation of such longer stimulation periods together with the experience that during DCS there is a shift in the pain threshold, even in segments above the stimulus including also the face, seems to indicate a participation of higher neuronal centers in the assumed gate control.