Mark,
Just be careful when evaluating these "new" thermogenic procedures. I trained at Texas Tech' s interventional program with Gabor Racz and Prithvi Raj so we were constantly being asked to evalualte and study these new technologies. By the time I had arrived, Racz and Raj had pretty much thrown IDET's under the bus and felt they really didn't work very well. It seems the dehyration of the nuclear/ annular junction that occurs with these procedures can actually increase the size of a fracture rather than seal it,and there were othe disc decompressions systems that they felt were far superior. Then along came Disctrode. The theory was great, place the catheter in the annulus itself rather than annular/nuclear junction. We spent a year doing this (only Dr. Racz was allowed for study purposes), and we could only get one pt. better....just one! And I wound up having to present and defend the case at a national meeting...not an enviable task when you don't believe in the technology. All I'm saying is that what sounds good in theory doesn't always translate to the real world, and we've been beating this thermal annuloplasty idea like a dead horse with very limited success.
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