Comparison of Percutaneous Neuromodulation and Therapeutic Exercise in Patients With Nonspecific Chronic Neck Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Neck pain is highly prevalent, affecting 203 million people worldwide in 2020 and ranking eleventh in terms of years lived with disability. More than 50% of individuals will not recover from an acute episode and will experience recurrent neck pain within 1 to 5 years, leading to a persistent and chronic problem. Chronic neck pain can originate from a traumatic episode, such as whiplash, or it may not have a traumatic origin. In the latter case, in the absence of an identifiable pathoanatomic cause, it is classified as nonspecific chronic neck pain (NSNP). The GBD 2021 study acknowledges that the burden of neck pain has not been reduced in the past three decades and projects a significant increase in this absolute burden by 2050. Several studies have highlighted the urgency of prioritizing future research on preventing and treating this condition.

Clinical practice guidelines for the management of NSNP advocate for the use of exercise. Specifically, it has been shown that specific neck exercises are more effective than other types of alternative exercises in reducing pain and disability in patients with NSNP. In recent years, treatment based on percutaneous neuromodulation (PNM) has gained popularity and has become an alternative to conventional treatment for soft tissue injuries, noted for its low incidence of significant side effects. PNM involves the percutaneous electrical stimulation of a peripheral nerve, either along its pathway or in a muscle, using a puncture needle that utilizes low or medium-frequency electrical currents. Additionally, the advent of ultrasound technology has provided new opportunities to improve the safety of this invasive approach.

The primary goal of PNM is to relieve pain and restore the normal functioning of the nervous system, reducing chronic and neuropathic pain associated with central sensitization and improving neuromuscular function and motor control. Although the physiological mechanism explaining pain inhibition and the analgesic effect remains incomplete, various hypotheses have been proposed to expand current knowledge. Among the most cited models is the "gate control" theory, which suggests that the electrical stimulation of large-diameter afferent nerve fibers inhibits pain transmission through small-diameter fibers to the central nervous system at the spinal cord level, producing what is known as neuromodulation. However, few studies investigate the effects of PNM, so more evidence is needed to draw solid conclusions.