Pain practice : the official journal of World Institute of Pain
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Total knee replacement (TKR) is a terminal therapy for osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee. While TKR results are generally satisfactory, a significant proportion of patients experience persistent pain lasting > 3 months following surgery, even after a technically acceptable operation. ⋯ Pain post-TKR is worse than preoperative pain in 7%, often resulting in surgical revision. The clinical experience of a patient that originally presented to an orthopedic surgeon with OA of both knees demonstrates an alternative relatively noninvasive pain management strategy: cooled radiofrequency (CRF) ablation of sensory nerves.
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Observational Study
Influence of Centrally Mediated Symptoms on Postoperative Pain in Osteoarthritis Patients Undergoing Total Knee Arthroplasty: A Prospective Observational Evaluation.
Central sensitization plays an important role in the chronic pain experienced by osteoarthritis (OA) patients. In this prospective observational study, we investigated the influence of the level of preoperative centrally mediated symptoms measured by the Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI) on pain intensity after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) for OA. ⋯ OA patients with high levels of comorbid centrally mediated symptoms showed severe pain and increased analgesic requirements after TKA in the early postoperative period. Moreover, these patients seemed to be at higher risk of persistent pain, and a high CSI score was predictive of low patient satisfaction in terms of pain relief after surgery.
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Pain has variously been used as a means of punishment, extracting information, or testing commitment, as a tool for education and social control, as a commodity for sacrifice, and as a draw for sport and entertainment. Attitudes concerning these uses have undergone major changes in the modern era. Normative convictions on what is right and wrong are generally attributed to religious tradition or to secular-humanist reasoning. ⋯ Social convention and other environmental influences, with their idiosyncrasies, are a more recent, ever-changing overlay. We close with an example in which details on the neurobiology of pain processing, specifically the question of where in the brain the experience of pain is generated, affect decision making in end-of-life situations. By separating innate biological substrates from culturally imposed attitudes (memes), we may arrive at a more reasoned approach to a morality of pain prevention.
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The 0 to 100 mm visual analogue scale (VAS) and the five-category verbal rating scale (VRS) are commonly used for measuring pain intensity. An open question remains as to whether these scales can be used interchangeably to allow comparisons between intensities of pain in the clinical setting or increased statistical power in pain research. ⋯ Regardless of the relatively high Spearman correlations between original VAS and VRS, the low ordinal association and low probability of agreement between discrete VAS and VRS suggest that they are not interchangeable. Therefore, VAS and VRS should not be used interchangeably in the clinical setting or for increased statistical power in pain research.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
A Comparison of Fentanyl and Flurbiprofen Axetil on Serum VEGF-C, TNF-α, and IL-1ß Concentrations in Women Undergoing Surgery for Breast Cancer.
Vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and interleukin-1ß(IL-1ß) have been shown to be associated with the recurrence and metastasis of breast cancer after surgery. This study tested the hypothesis that patients undergoing surgery for breast cancer, who received postoperative analgesia with flurbiprofen axetil combined with small doses of fentanyl (FA), exhibited reduced levels of VEGF-C, TNF-α, and IL-1ß compared with those patients receiving fentanyl alone (F). ⋯ In patients undergoing a mastectomy, postoperative analgesia with flurbiprofen axetil, combined with fentanyl, were associated with decreases in serum concentrations of VEGF-C, TNF-α, and IL-1ß compared with patients receiving doses of only fentanyl.