Matthew J. Pingree, M.D.

The purpose of this study is to collect additional data on the safety and effiectiveness of the SPRINT PNS System for the treatment of head pain due to cervicogenic headache or occipital neuralgia.

The purpose of this study is to assess the safety of the Angel® Concentrated Platelet Rich Plasma System and Angel® CPRP Processing Set to process Platelet Rich Plasma for intra-articular injection into four lumbar facet joints (2 levels) causing chronic low back pain.

This is a prospective, randomized, multicenter comparison study examining the outcomes of subjects with osteoarthritis and knee pain undergoing a procedure to create a radiofrequency lesion of the genicular nerves with the Cooled Radiofrequency Ablation (CRFA) system compared to subjects receiving Hyaluronic Acid (HA). Approximately 168 subjects will be enrolled into this study, with subjects undergoing either CRFA or HA injection in a 1:1 randomization scheme. Follow-up will be conducted for 12 months post-CRFA, with the primary endpoint being completed at month 6. Subjects randomized to the comparison (HA) group will have the option to cross-over to the neurotomy group after completing the 6-month endpoint assessment. They will be followed for an additional 6 months. Pain, overall outcome, quality of life, pain medication use, and adverse events will be compared between the two treatment groups to determine success.

To determine the accuracy of unguided versus ultrasound (US) guided knee joint injections in obese patients with no clinically detectable effusion.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effectiveness and safety of using platelet rich plasma in the treatment of degenerative joint disease in the lumbar spine area.

This study will compare the analgesic benefit of a traditional landmark-guided GON block with the ultrasound-guided approach over a four week period in patients with occipital neuralgia or cervicogenic headache.

This study is designed to answer the question of whether injection of the greater occipital nerve at its proximal origin, near the C2 vertebrae, using ultrasound guidance is effective in improving pain in human subjects.

HYPOTHESES

1. Ultrasound (US) guided greater occipital nerve (GON) injections are effective at a novel, proximal C2 location in live, human subjects, measured by improvement in visual analog scale (VAS) pain scores pre-injection compared to VAS scores 30 minutes post-injection, 2-weeks post-injection, and 1-month post-injection.
2. Ultrasound (US) guided injection of the greater occipital nerve (GON) at a novel, C2 location is effective at improvement of both occipital neuralgia and cervicogenic headache demonstrated by improvement in visual analog scale (VAS) pain scores pre-injection compared to VAS scores 30 minutes post-injection, 2-weeks post-injection, and 1-month post-injection. We further hypothesize that the mean improvement in VAS scores at 1-month post injection will be greater than 2 units.
3. Ultrasound (US) guided injection of the greater occipital nerve (GON) at novel, proximal C2 location in live, human subjects appears safe.

This study is being done to determine how well a needle can be placed into your knee joint with the use of an ultrasound machine for guidance and to find out if specific nerves can be reached with anesthetic or placebo to prevent the pain in the knee. We are interested if we can reach the specific nerve that will be anesthetized to prevent the pain.