Articles: neuralgia.
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Although we know chronic pain (CP) affects approximately 30% of people in developed countries, data from Latin America are scarce. Moreover, prevalence of specific CP conditions, such as chronic noncancer pain (CNCP), fibromyalgia (FM), and neuropathic pain (NP), is unknown. To estimate them in Chile, we prospectively enrolled 1945 participants (61.4% women and 38.6% men), aged 38 to 74 years, from an agricultural town who answered a Pain Questionnaire, the Fibromyalgia Survey Questionnaire, and Douleur Neuropathique 4 (DN4) to identify CNCP, FM, and NP, respectively. ⋯ Female sex, fewer school years, and depressive symptoms were associated with FM and NP, whereas diabetes was only associated with NP. We standardized the results from our sample against the whole Chilean population and found no significant difference to our crude estimates. This is in line with studies from developed countries, highlighting the idea that despite genetic and environmental differences, the conditions that confer risk to CNCP remain stable.
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Chronic pain is a prevalent disease with increasing clinical challenges. Genome-wide association studies in chronic pain patients have identified hundreds of common pathogenic variants, yet they only explained a portion of individual variance of chronic pain. With the advances in next-generation sequencing technologies, it is now feasible to conduct rarer variants studies in large-scale databases. ⋯ These 2 rare variants were then tested for replication in 3 other biobanks, and the strongest evidence was found for rs28364172 as an individual contributor. Transcriptional analyses of Slc13a1 in rodents showed substantial regulation of its expression in the dorsal root ganglia and the sciatic nerve in neuropathic pain assays. Our results stress the importance of the SLC13A1 gene in sulfate homeostasis in the nervous system and its critical role in preventing pain states, thus suggesting new therapeutic approaches for treating chronic pain in a personalized manner, especially in people with mutations in the SLC13A1 gene.
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Acta clinica Croatica · Aug 2023
MULTIDIMENSIONALITY AND MULTIDISCIPLINARITY OF CHRONIC NEUROPATHIC NONODONTOGENIC OROFACIAL PAIN.
This study compared the self-assessed health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and degree of depression between patients with chronic neuropathic nonodontogenic orofacial pain (NOFP) and healthy controls using the Short Form Survey (SF-36) health status questionnaire and Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II). This controlled cross-sectional study included 100 patients and 119 healthy controls. The diagnostic protocol recorded the following: 1) pain intensity using a visual analog scale for the time of examination and during the one-month prior; 2) evidence for neuropathic pain using the Leeds questionnaire for neuropathic signs and symptoms (LANSS); 3) emotional status using the BDI-II; and 4) HRQoL using the SF-36 questionnaire. ⋯ In conclusion, NOFP significantly reduces the self-reported HRQoL. NOFP is also related to the development of depression, but does not affect its severity. There is a significant correlation between depression and low quality of life in patients with NOFP.
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Post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN) is a chronic pain that is difficult to treat and lasts a long time, which poses a threat to patients' physical and mental health (MH) and quality of life. To analyze the effectiveness of extracorporeal shock wave (ESW) combined with pregabalin on PHN and its impact on PHN patients' quality of life with the help of a random number table. Totally 164 PHN patients were assigned to a control group (n = 82) or an observation group (n = 82). ⋯ After treatment, the observation group exhibited much lower ESR and CRP but quite higher lymphocyte count and albumin level relative to the control group (P < .05). Additionally, the improvement in visual analogue scale (VAS) scores and short form 36 (SF-36) scale scores including role-emotional (RE), MH, physical function (PF), general health (GH), bodily pain (BP), social function (SF), vitality (VT), and role-physical (RP) scores in the 2 groups were pronounced following treatment, which was more apparent in the observation group (P < .05). The combination of ESW with pregabalin can reduce the inflammation, improve the quality of life of PHN patients and effectively relieve their neuralgia.
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The Notch gene, a highly evolutionarily conserved gene, was discovered approximately 110 years ago and has been found to play a crucial role in the development of multicellular organisms. Notch receptors and their ligands are single-pass transmembrane proteins that typically require cellular interactions and proteolytic processing to facilitate signal transduction. ⋯ Moreover, the Notch signaling pathway may contribute to the persistence of neuropathic pain by enhancing synaptic transmission and calcium inward flow. This paper reviews the structure and activation of the Notch signaling pathway, as well as its potential mechanisms of action, to provide novel insights for future treatments of neuropathic pain.