The journal of pain : official journal of the American Pain Society
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Review Case Reports
Understanding and treating opioid addiction in a patient with cancer pain.
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Adults who suffer from chronic pain are at increased risk for suicide ideation and attempts, but it is not clear whether adolescents with chronic pain are similarly at elevated risk. This study investigates whether chronic pain is associated with an increase in suicidal ideation/attempts independent of depression in a population sample of adolescents. We analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of adolescents in the United States (N = 9,970). Most chronic pain was related to suicide ideation/attempt both in the last year (odds ratio [OR] 1.3-2.1) and during the subsequent year (OR 1.2-1.8). After controlling for depressive symptoms, headaches (OR = 1.3 last year, OR = 1.2 subsequent year) and muscle aches (OR = 1.3 last year) remained associated with suicide ideation but not suicide attempt. These findings show that chronic pain in adolescence is a risk factor for suicide ideation; this effect is partly but not fully explained by depression. Youth with comorbid depression and chronic pain are at increased risk of thinking about and attempting suicide. Clinicians should be alert to suicide ideation/attempt and comorbid depression in this at-risk population. ⋯ Adolescents who suffer from chronic pain are at increased risk for suicide ideation and attempt. Depressive symptoms account for the link between chronic pain and suicide attempt, but do not completely explain why adolescents with chronic pain show suicide ideation.
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Multicenter Study
The neuropathic components of chronic low back pain: a prospective multicenter study using the DN4 Questionnaire.
The present study investigated the neuropathic components of chronic low back pain (LBP) in patients with and without lower limb pain using the DN4 questionnaire and confirmed its psychometric properties. Patients (n = 132) from 11 French multidisciplinary pain or rheumatology centers were classified by a first investigator into 4 groups derived from the Quebec Task Force Classification of Spinal Disorders (QTFSD): group 1 (pain restricted to the lumbar area); group 2 (pain radiating proximally); group 3 (pain radiating below the knee without neurologic signs); and group 4 (pain radiating towards the foot in a dermatomal distribution, with neurological signs, corresponding to typical radiculopathy). A second investigator applied the DN4 questionnaire to the lower limb (groups 2 to 4) and lower back. A comparison of groups 1 and 4 confirmed the psychometric properties of DN4 (sensitivity 80%; specificity 92%, for a cutoff of 4/10, similar to other neuropathic conditions). In the lower limb, the proportion of patients with neuropathic pain (NP) was related to the distality of pain radiation (15, 39, and 80% in groups 2, 3 and 4, respectively; P < .0001). In the lower back, the proportion of patients with NP was higher for patients with typical radicular pain compared with the other groups (P = .006). Thus, typical radiculopathy has similar characteristics as other neuropathic conditions and is confirmed as the commonest neuropathic syndrome in LBP patients. The observation that neuropathic and nociceptive components of LBP vary in the back and lower limb probably accounts for the discrepancies of reported prevalence rates of NP in LBP. As this study was essentially based on a questionnaire, future studies combining standard clinical sensory testing, specific questionnaires, and more objective assessment of the sensory lesion are now required to further investigate the neuropathic component of chronic LBP. ⋯ This study confirms the psychometric properties of the DN4 questionnaire to assess neuropathic pain in patients with low back pain. Neuropathic mechanisms largely contribute to pain in the lower limb as compared to the back, but neuropathic pain is not restricted to typical radiculopathy. This may have significant implications for the choice of treatment strategy in these patients.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Early improvement in pain predicts pain response at endpoint in patients with fibromyalgia.
An unanswered, but clinically important question is whether there are early indicators that a patient might respond to duloxetine treatment for fibromyalgia pain. To address this question, pooled data from 4 double-blind, placebo-controlled trials in duloxetine-treated patients (N = 797) with primary fibromyalgia as defined by the American College for Rheumatology were analyzed. Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis was used to determine what level of early pain improvement as measured by the 24-hour average pain severity question on the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) best predicted later response. The predictor variables tested were 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30% decrease in BPI 24-hour average pain from baseline to Week 1 and Week 2. The results of the CART analysis showed that for patients with ≥15% improvement in pain at Week 1 and ≥30% improvement at Week 2, the probability of response at 3 months was 75%. For patients with <15% improvement at both Week 1 and Week 2, the probability of not responding at 3 months was 86%. Quantifiable early improvement in pain during the first 2 weeks of treatment with duloxetine was highly predictive of response or nonresponse after 3 months of treatment. ⋯ This article presents early indicators that can highly predict later pain response or nonresponse in fibromyalgia patients treated with duloxetine. The results may aid clinicians to predict the likelihood of response at 3 months within the first 2 weeks of treatment.
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Activity patterns are believed to play an important role in the development and perpetuation of chronic pain. So far, 3 important activity patterns have been studied: avoidance behavior, persistence behavior, and pacing behavior. Yet, empirical evidence is limited and inconclusive about the relationships between these activity patterns and important outcomes. Therefore, the present study was aimed at identifying activity patterns by means of factor analyses and determining their relationship with disability and depressive symptomatology in participants with chronic pain (N = 132). Items across different measurement instruments pertaining to 1 particular activity pattern were aggregated, and submitted to factor analysis. Results from 3 separate factor analyses revealed 6 distinct activity patterns: pain avoidance, activity avoidance, task-contingent persistence, excessive persistence, pain-contingent persistence, and pacing. In line with our hypotheses, pain and activity avoidance, and excessive persistence, were related to higher levels of disability and depressive symptomatology. In contrast to hypotheses, pacing was associated with worse outcomes as well. Interestingly, task-contingent persistence was related to lower levels of disability and depressive symptomatology. When controlling for pain and the other activity patterns, excessive persistence and activity avoidance were the most detrimental in terms of relations with depressed mood or disability. Task-contingent persistence appeared to be the least detrimental. ⋯ Our findings suggest the existence of several activity patterns, which are differentially related to disability and depressive symptomatology, in participants with chronic pain. The present results are discussed in the light of previous findings, and may provide a new impetus for future studies on activity patterns in chronic pain research.