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A Breakthrough Radiotracer for Diagnostic Pain Imaging

Identify Sites of Pain Generation for Treatment Selection, Tailoring, and Guidance

190 Patients Scanned
DoD and NIH Funded

In Collaboration with Ole Miss and Stanford

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Chronic pain remains an area of substantial unmet medical need, affecting millions yet lacking effective diagnostic and therapeutic solutions. A major advance in this space has the potential to profoundly improve care and outcomes for countless patients suffering from chronic pain syndromes.

PainVox’s innovative PET radiotracer technology represents such a breakthrough. In early clinical trials this radiopharmaceutical located occult pain generators across a variety of conditions, providing actionable insights to aid planning and guide targeted treatment.

  • In difficult-to-treat cases, PainVox's radiotracer PV-1 enabled doctors to select new treatments and improve efficacy of therapies.

  • PV-1 also reduced costs by facilitating more precise and effective care.

  • Documented cases show 90 to 100% reduction in pain. This compares favorably to the standard measure of success of 50% reduction in pain.

By illuminating the underlying source of pain, PainVox’s radiotracer technology promises to transition the field from reliance on short-term palliative medications and hit-or-miss procedures to curative solutions that address specific, underlying pain generators. PainVox is generating robust clinical data that will convince healthcare providers to add PainVox’s radiotracer and PET to their imaging orders, leading to paradigm-changing precision in standard chronic pain care pathways.

Precision targeting of sites of origin of pain has the potential to alleviate suffering for patients who have tried multiple other options, improving quality of life as well as clinical and financial outcomes. This represents a breakthrough to address the pain / opioid crisis.

Case Study - Pain Images Before and After Pain Treatment of High Impact Pain

PV-1 enables objective identification and visualization of painful tissue - not available until now and only possible with PV-1 using PET/MR Imaging. Patients have been successfully treated with treatments indicated by PV-1 precision pain imaging.

Post-treatment, doctors can follow up to confirm patient reports of pain resolution.

Before Surgery:

  • Surgeon was out of options for a patient with 10 out of 10 pain after prior ACL restoration and meniscus removal.

  • PV-1 uptake indicated synovial fibrosis requiring surgical removal.

After Surgery:

  • Substantially reduced PV-1 uptake (at a background level) corresponding to painful tissue removed. 

  • Patient reports complete pain relief & return to normal activity.

Case Study - Diagnostic Imaging of Low-Level Pain

Diffuse Pain for Decades

55 year old male with 4/10 chronic pain in right leg from hip to foot. No substantial relief despite decades of seeing specialists, multiple MRIs and X-rays, getting shots, meditation, yoga, and spending months in physical therapy.

A PainVox scan indicated origin of pain in an unexpected location - at the sustentaculum tali in the ankle.

Patient Statement

“The pain radiating from my hip to foot finally had a source location. Knowing the location allowed me to manage my ankle better and get the right care right there. Initially I was surprised when they told me the pain’s location because I didn't report ankle pain. Then I realized that I had had a childhood fall there that for decades I've been compensating for."

Early Results in Pelvic Pain

“All five patients showed abnormally increased radioligand uptake on PET compared to healthy controls at various organs, including the uterus, vagina, pelvic bowel, gluteus maximus muscle, and liver. However, on MRI, only 2 patients showed abnormalities that could be potentially associated with the pain symptoms.

For a subset of patients, the association of pain and the abnormally increased radioligand uptake was further validated by successful pain relief outcomes following surgery or trigger point injections to the identified abnormalities. “

Tremendous Unmet Need

The current standard of care for diagnosing pain (MRI, X-rays, CT, ultrasound, EMG, clinical exam, etc) has low sensitivity and poor accuracy, substantially contributing to overly complex pain management and, at times, mismanagement of pain patients: misguided interventions, imprecise or unnecessary surgeries, or systemic medication when a cure or near-cure was otherwise available.

Diagnostic Ligand

PainVox’s radioligand enables accurate detection of the molecular underpinnings of pain specifically pinpoints pro-nociceptive pathology by binding to Sigma-1 Receptors.

A Mission to Partner with Visionaries

PainVox seeks leading researchers and visionary industry leaders to partner with to address the pain crisis. We believe that visualizing pain generators - quantified and objective - will open up new innovation and solutions to address the pain crisis in the US and the world.

Interested in partnering with PainVox? Reach out.

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