Spinal cord electrical stimulation in severe angina pectoris: surgical technique, intraoperative physiology, complications, and side effects.

Twenty patients with angina pectoris were treated with spinal cord stimulation (SCS) at the T1,T2 level of the spinal cord since June 1985. These patients were not candidates for angioplasty or coronary bypass or those procedures had failed. There were no injections. One lead broke and one lead migrated. Both were corrected migrally and regained some relief. The relief of pain with SCS may be an alternative treatment to coronary bypass or angioplasty in some patients.