Articles: chronic-pain.
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Rev Bras Anestesiol · Dec 2004
[Pharmacological treatment of trigeminal neuralgia: systematic review and metanalysis.].
Trigeminal neuralgia is a syndrome of chronic pain, characterized by paroxysms of excruciating pain which dramatically affect patients' quality of life. Systemic drug therapy is the first line treatment for this disease. This study aimed at evaluating efficacy, safety and tolerability of several pharmacologic treatments offered to trigeminal neuralgia patients, trying to supply evidences for clinical practice recommendations and to identify the needs for further research. ⋯ Carbamazepine is still the drug of choice for treating trigeminal neuralgia, being lamotrigine and pimozide indicated for cases refractory to conventional therapy. In addition, further studies are needed to determine future therapeutic options.
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Nonradicular low back pain can be a difficult entity to accurately diagnose and treat. Facet joints, muscle, ligaments, and fascia have all been reported to be etiologies of acute and chronic low back pain. However, the facet joint as a source of low back pain is controversial. The diagnosis of facet joint pain is made by diagnostic facet joint or median nerve branch injections with a local anesthetic. The purpose of this study was to determine if the results of diagnostic facet joint injections are influenced by the technique used to perform these injections. ⋯ The results of this study demonstrated that local anesthetic injections are useful for the diagnosis of nonradicular low back pain but may yield false positive results with respect to lumbar facet pain depending upon the technique utilized.
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Intradiscal electrothermal annuloplasty (IDET) is an effective treatment for chronic discogenic low back pain (LBP). However, efficacy of IDET for the treatment of referred leg pain has not been examined. This study was performed to assess the long-term efficacy of IDET for the treatment of referred leg pain in chronic discogenic LBP patients. ⋯ A relatively large number of LBP patients who underwent IDET (84%) presented with referred leg pain without sciatica. The IDET procedure afforded improvements in leg pain that correlated well with improvements in back pain (0.75/4 and 0.88/4, respectively). These data suggest that IDET may relieve associated limb pain in chronic discogenic LBP patients.