Physician Stories

Dr. Christopher Doran Relieves Knee Pain with Novel Treatment

GCBS’ pain management specialist, Christopher Doran, MD, is the only physician in Indianapolis trained to treat patients suffering from osteoarthritis of the knee with a new non-surgical procedure known as COOLIEF Knee Rhizotomy. Doran says the new treatment so far has given his patients 80–90% relief from their chronic knee pain.

We caught up with him to learn more:

Why have you adopted COOLIEF Knee Rhizotomy? 

This applies the same theory as rhizotomy for spinal arthritis, but for knee arthritis.  My fellowship director from Northwestern introduced the procedure to me as they were some of the first in the country to perform it.  This can be offered to patients who have failed conservative treatments, are not candidates for total knee replacements, or who have had knee replacements and still have pain.

How long have you performed it here at GCBS?

 This procedure has only been available in the United States for about 18 months.  I personally only started performing it within the last 3 months or so.  The closest physicians other than myself who are trained to perform COOLIEF are in Anderson, IN.

What do you tell patients will be the outcome of the procedure?

Halyard Health (the COOLIEF producer) reports 50% pain relief for up to a year and a half (because that’s how long they have data for).  When it comes to spinal rhizotomy we typically see benefit for 1–5 years.  The 10 or so patients I’ve performed this on have reported relief of 80-90% when we had them follow up 6-8 weeks after.

Read more about COOLIEFhttps://www.mycoolief.com/

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