For Release: 05-16-2005

'Most Painful' Sports-Injury Surgery Tamed with High-Tech Pain Pump

Rotator Cuff Patients Remain Pain-Free and Recover at Home Using State-of-the-Art ambIT Medical Infusion Pump. Professional and Amateur Athletes Benefit from Latest Anesthetic Technique.

SARASOTA, FL and SALT LAKE CITY (May 16, 2005) —Sarasota attorney J. Allen Bobo is a self-professed gym rat and until recently he believed the locker-room lore that surgical repair of the shoulder’s rotator cuff is one of the most painful operations you can experience. But when Bobo underwent the procedure this year he found, "My rotator cuff surgery was less painful than most dental work. I had no pain following the surgery. In fact, the day after surgery, my shoulder hurt less than the day before surgery."

What makes pain-free surgical recovery practical for both professional and amateur athletes today is a new generation of innovative, microchip-controlled pain pumps made by Sorenson Medical in Salt Lake City. An anesthesiologist connects one of these medical infusion pumps to a precisely placed catheter, or thin tube, that bathes the nerves at the source of the pain with a mild anesthetic, the type a dentist uses. These ambIT pain pumps provide a continuous drip of anesthetic exactly where needed, which is much more effective than swallowing pain pills because the pain-killing effect of a narcotic pill peaks and wears off, causing pain to come and go. In addition, narcotic pills may cause nausea, vomiting, constipation and drowsiness—and they include a risk of addiction.

The new technique, continuous peripheral nerve block anesthesia, is just now coming into mainstream use but has been available for a couple of years. "We have been operating on professional athletes using it," said Dr. Dan Kirkpatrick, Bobo’s anesthesiologist at Gulf Coast Surgery Center in Sarasota. "One of our orthopedic surgeons, Dr. Brian Scofield, is a team doctor for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Baltimore Orioles and we find these athletes do very well with this system and remain pain free." Kirkpatrick has been using the ambIT pain pump for more than two years without complications, he said. The surgical center operates on 44 patients a week performing orthopedic, general and podiatric surgery.

"Using pain pumps is definitely the wave of the future," said Kirkpatrick, risks are reduced and patient comfort is enhanced. The ambIT pain pumps—which hang from a belt pack and run on two AA batteries—stay with the patient to ensure a comfortable recovery at home and include a button for the patient to push to increase the anesthetic dose in case he or she should begin to feel pain. "Patients go home after surgery, sleep in their own bed, use their own bathroom, and avoid the risks of hospital-acquired infections. Before surgery, we show the patient how to remove their own catheter and after recovery, they mail the pain pump back to us."

"So, why should a patient expect to hurt for several days after surgery when we have these high technology solutions to eliminate pain?" Kirkpatrick asks. "Traditionally, rotator cuff surgery was extremely painful. But today the bottom line is that I can make surgery patients pain-free for multiple days without having them experience nausea. We break the pain cycle and the patient is ambulatory earlier and recovers faster."

"I’m completely satisfied," said Bobo of his sports-injury repair. "I even recommended the surgery to my 73-year-old father. I don’t know how they could make the ambIT pump easier to use. It’s an amazing product."

About Sorenson Medical
Sorenson Medical (www.sorensonmedical.com) specializes in the design and manufacture of compact, electronic ambulatory infusion pumps that are easy to use and deliver medication precisely. The ambIT line of infusion pumps offers physicians new options for managing post-operative pain, for delivering chemotherapy and IV anti-invectives, and for other continuous or intermittent therapies in the outpatient setting. Sorenson Medical is FDA registered and the quality system is certified to ISO 13485: 2003. Sorenson Medical's products are CE marked (European Conformity) for distribution in the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA).