Successful sacral nerve modulation despite migration of tined lead

Abstract

Background: Sacral nerve modulation (SNM) is a minimally invasive treatment for chronic constipation or incontinence when conservative treatment is insufficient to provide relieve of symptoms. Case description: A 74-year-old patient with an implanted sacral nerve lead is presented in this case report with a dislodged lead without an adverse change in her incontinence treatment. This phenomenon has never been described before and raises the debate on sacral lead positioning in sacral nerve stimulation. Discussion: There are a lot of conflicting data regarding ideal lead positioning, such as S3 versus S2 or S4 implantation. The lead position in our case doesn’t correspond to previously described locations and pathways which corroborate the legitimacy of new developments in this area such as percutaneous tibial nerve stimulation, transcutaneous tibial nerve stimulation and transcutaneous abdominal electrical stimulation (TEN). Conclusions: The implantation of SNM seems standardized but leaves voids in the technique where further research is needed to refine it.