Motor cortex stimulation (MCS) not only alleviates pain but also improves the quality of life from 35% to 85% of the people suffered from chronic refractory neuropathic pain, findings of the Clinical Results and Systematic Review of the Literature presented in the official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, Neurosurgery.

Literature was searched from PubMed from 1966 to October 2016 using keywords involving “motor cortex stimulation and pain and quality of life” and “motor cortex stimulation and pain and neurosurgery”. A series of 10 patients with chronic neuropathic pain were assessed for quality of life prospectively observed for 12 months after the MCS.

A total of 218 nonreplicated articles were selected, out of which six reported the pre- and postoperative period measures of quality of life. Sixty-four participants with distinct clinical conditions linked with neuropathic pain were observed for 6 to 84 months after the treatment. Quality of life improved by 50%. The visual analog scale (VAS), SF-12 mental scores (MenCS) and physical (PhysCS) scores also showed improvements 12 months after the treatment. The PhysCS and MenCS showed no associations with postoperative improvement in pain. These findings explain that except analgesic effect, several other factors may be associated with improvements in quality-of-life.