Pain practice : the official journal of World Institute of Pain
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Multicenter Study
Long-term results of percutaneous lumbar decompression mild(®) for spinal stenosis.
Lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) generally occurs from a combination of degenerative changes occurring in the lumbar spine. These include hypertrophy of ligamentum flavum, facet joint arthritic changes and bulging of the intervertebral disk. Spinal stenosis leads to compression of the lumbar neural elements (cauda equina), which manifests as low back and leg pain especially on standing and walking known as "neurogenic claudication." Current treatment options for LSS are varied. Conservative management, including physical therapy with/without epidural steroid injections, may be adequate for mild stenosis. Surgical decompression is reserved for severe cases and results in variable degrees of success. Patients with moderate-to-severe LSS having ligamentum flavum hypertrophy as a key contributor are generally inappropriately treated or undertreated. This is due to ineffectiveness of conservative therapy and possibility that major surgical compression might be too aggressive. Percutaneous decompression offers a possible solution for this patient population. ⋯ At 1 year this 58-patient cohort demonstrated continued excellent safety profile of the mild(®) procedure and equally important, showed long-term pain relief and improved functionality.
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In a prospective observational study conducted in an urban pain management center, we evaluated whether spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is effective in relieving discogenic pain of IDD origin. ⋯ The current study indicates that SCS may provide effective pain relief, improve disability, and reduce opioid usage in patients with discogenic pain.
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Comparative Study
Health care costs in patients with painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy prescribed pregabalin or duloxetine.
Pregabalin and duloxetine are two FDA-approved medications for the treatment of pain associated with diabetic peripheral neuropathy (pDPN). The objective of this study was to compare changes in all-cause and pDPN-related health care costs in patients with pDPN initiated on pregabalin or duloxetine. ⋯ No differences were noted in all-cause costs attributable to pregabalin or duloxetine. Although patients receiving pregabalin had a significantly greater pre- to post-index increase in pDPN-related health care costs compared with patients receiving duloxetine, this may have been due to an imbalance in patient exclusion criteria between cohorts.
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Carbamazepine (CBZ) is one of the standard pharmacological treatments for neuropathic pain. However, its serious adverse drug reactions include Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). Recently, HLA-B*1502 allele was implicated as a genetic marker of CBZ-induced SJS/TEN in some Asian epilepsy populations. ⋯ HLA-B*1502 is a strong genetic marker for CBZ-induced SJS/TEN in Thai patients with neuropathic pain. The screening for this marker should be performed prior to initiation of CBZ treatment to assess the risk of this serious side effect.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Preoperative gabapentin for acute post-thoracotomy analgesia: a randomized, double-blinded, active placebo-controlled study.
The role of preoperative gabapentin in postoperative pain management is not clear, particularly in patients receiving regional blockade. Patients undergoing thoracotomy benefit from epidural analgesia but still may experience significant postoperative pain. We examined the effect of preoperative gabapentin in thoracotomy patients. ⋯ A single preoperative oral dose of gabapentin (600 mg) did not reduce pain scores or opioid consumption following elective thoracotomy, and did not confer any analgesic benefit in the setting of effective multimodal analgesia that included thoracic epidural infusion.