Articles: low-back-pain.
-
Thalamic neuroinflammation as a reproducible and discriminating signature for chronic low back pain.
Using positron emission tomography, we recently demonstrated elevated brain levels of the 18 kDa translocator protein (TSPO), a glial activation marker, in chronic low back pain (cLBP) patients, compared to healthy controls (HCs). Here, we first sought to replicate the original findings in an independent cohort (15 cLBP, 37.8 ± 12.5 y/o; 18 HC, 48.2 ± 12.8 y/o). We then trained random forest machine learning algorithms based on TSPO imaging features combining discovery and replication cohorts (totaling 25 cLBP, 42.4 ± 13.2 y/o; 27 HC, 48.9 ± 12.6 y/o), to explore whether image features other than the mean contain meaningful information that might contribute to the discrimination of cLBP patients and HC. ⋯ The random forest-based analyses revealed that although the mean is a discriminating feature, other features demonstrate similar level of importance, including the maximum, kurtosis, and entropy. Our observations suggest that thalamic neuroinflammatory signal is a reproducible and discriminating feature for cLBP, further supporting a role for glial activation in human cLBP, and the exploration of neuroinflammation as a therapeutic target for chronic pain. This work further shows that TSPO signal contains a richness of information that the simple mean might fail to capture completely.
-
To identify low back pain (LBP) trajectories from early adolescence through to early adulthood and to investigate whether sustained levels of elevated subclinical C-reactive protein (CRP) are linked with these LBP trajectories. ⋯ Diagnostic: individual cross-sectional studies with the consistently applied reference standard and blinding.
-
Sociodemographic inequalities in the occurrence of low back pain (LBP) are well-studied. This study aimed to examine complex sociodemographic inequalities in the risk of LBP consultation in the population from a socioeconomical intersectional perspective. Using register data, we identified 458,852 individuals aged 35 to 75 years residing in Skåne in 2013, with no previous LBP consultation since 2006. ⋯ The low DA of the intersectional strata indicates the existence of limited intersectional inequalities in LBP consultation. Therefore, interventions to reduce LBP risk should be universal rather than targeted to specific socioeconomic groups with a higher average risk. Before planning targeted intervention, other risk factors with higher DA need to be identified.
-
Z-spectral MRI data were analyzed to produce multiparametric metabolic and microenvironmental contrasts for identifying intervertebral discs with/without pain symptom and sore pain. ⋯ Z-spectral MRI with its multiparametric metabolic and microenvironmental contrasts has been demonstrated to identify discs with and without pain symptom or sore pain, providing more important information of CLBP.
-
The Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) is one of the most common patient-reported outcome measures used for low back pain (LBP). Since it was not available in Indonesian, this study aimed to perform a cross-cultural adaptation of ODI to Indonesian and evaluate its psychometric properties. ⋯ The Indonesian version of ODI displayed similar reliability, validity, and psychometric characteristics to the original ODI. This questionnaire will be a suitable instrument for assessing LBP-related disability for Indonesian-speaking patients.