Anesthesiology recently published an editorial titled “Cryoneurolysis: Interest and Caution” which addressed an accompanying study investigating the treatment of postmastectomy pain with ultrasound-guided percutaneous cryoneurolysis.1 The editorial raised multiple important and valid limitations of the study, as well as noting that caution is warranted because “neuropathic pain is produced so reliably after cryoneurolysis that it has been used as a model of chronic pain development in rodents since the 1990s.”2 Although we agree that an abundance of caution is indeed warranted before widespread implementation of this analgesic modality, the authors of this letter have potentially important unpublished information that will help put the cited laboratory evidence in perspective for future clinical and laboratory research.
The editorial-cited study involved the treatment of Sprague-Dawley rats with cryoneurolysis, coauthored by this letter’s senior author nearly 3 decades ago (R.W.).3 As described in the Methods, “A 3-cm incision was made…...
