After enduring years of persistent back pain, Rosie Amoroso, a 32-year-old mother from Hazlet, New Jersey, found relief through an innovative nonsurgical procedure at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in Manhattan. The treatment, known as basivertebral nerve (BVN) ablation or the Intracept procedure, targets a specific spinal nerve with heat to stop pain signals from reaching the brain.
Amoroso’s back pain intensified after childbirth three years ago, making daily activities and caring for her son increasingly difficult. Despite consulting nine doctors in New Jersey and trying physical therapy, medication, epidural injections, and radiofrequency ablation procedures, she saw no improvement. She also faced challenges with feeling dismissed by some healthcare providers and incurred significant insurance co-payments.
“I was ready to do anything to eliminate the pain, even if it meant spine surgery,” Amoroso said. She decided to seek care at HSS after hearing about her father’s positive experience there.
Following an evaluation by a spine surgeon at HSS, she was referred to Edward S. Yoon, MD, chief of the division of interventional radiology. Dr. Yoon determined that Amoroso was a suitable candidate for BVN ablation and performed the procedure in May 2025. According to Amoroso, “I felt like he went above and beyond, like he really cared about me.”
BVN ablation is a minimally invasive outpatient procedure that uses radiofrequency energy to disable the basivertebral nerve in the spine. Dr. Yoon explained: “BVN ablation is a targeted treatment for a specific type of chronic lower back pain called vertebrogenic pain, which results from damage to vertebral endplates. A vertebral endplate is the interface between the spinal disc and the bony portion of a spine vertebra. Microfractures or other damage to a vertebral endplate leads to inflammation, which causes the adjacent basivertebral nerves to transmit pain signals to the brain.”
He added that patients who benefit from BVN ablation often have middle lower back pain worsened by activity or prolonged sitting and that doctors use MRI scans showing Modic changes—specific signs of vertebral endplate inflammation—to diagnose candidates for this treatment. “Basivertebral nerve ablation is not useful for treating low back pain caused by conditions that have not affected the endplates, such as a herniated disc,” Dr. Yoon noted.
Since undergoing BVN ablation, Amoroso reports being able to sleep through the night and participate fully in family life again: “Before the treatment, I barely slept two hours a night. Now I can sleep through the night,” she said. “I can pick up my son, take him to the jungle gym, go down the slide with him. It’s a big deal.” She also shared that she and her husband are expecting their second child.
BVN ablation is generally covered by insurance plans and performed on an outpatient basis. Additional information about this procedure is available on the HSS website at https://www.hss.edu/health-library/conditions-and-treatments/intracept-procedure-basivertebral-nerve-ablation.
