Dr. Howie Levinson, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon, discusses targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR) and regenerative peripheral nerve interface (RPNI) for phantom limb pain.
My name is Howie Levinson. I'm a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and I work for a Centra medical group. Another big hot topic uh in the field, it relates to uh pain, phantom limb pain and to neuropathic pain for amputees. So, uh recently, a few colleagues of mine have invented two different approaches to dealing with that pain, which is can be really troublesome and chronic. Uh The first one is TMR targeted muscle uh reinnervation and that's taking a sensory nerve and plugging it into a motor nerve. And that seems to have very good outcomes to relieve people of phantom limb pain or nerve pain. Uh Another approach is RP and I or we generating peripheral nerve interfaces, which is basically taking a neuroma, cutting out the neuroma and taking a cuff of muscle to wrap that around the sensory nerve, which also has very good outcomes. So that's um very helpful for people's stom pain. Uh that's leg, in particular, lower extremity, in particular could be uh thigh as well um for above knee amputations. And it can also be for the upper extremity
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