Despite continuous advancements in systematic treatment of chronic pain there is still a subset of clinical conditions where the standard medical and surgical approaches are not uniformly effective. Moreover, in addition to these relatively rare but remarkably treatment-refractory diagnoses (post-stroke pain, brachial plexus avulsion pain, spinal cord injury pain, anesthesia dolorosa, etc.), there are many other, much more prevalent, conditions (persistent spinal pain syndrome (previously referred to as failed back surgery syndrome), painful peripheral neuropathy, complex regional pain syndromes, etc.) where even a small percentage of treatment-refractory patients constitutes a large group of chronic pain sufferers.
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