Articles: pain-clinics.
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Nonopioid analgesic drugs may interfere with platelet inhibition by aspirin. Recent in vitro and clinical studies in patients with cardiovascular disease have suggested that this pharmacodynamic interaction may also occur with dipyrone, a nonopioid analgesic popular in Europe, Asia and South America. ⋯ Dipyrone given for 5 days or longer blunts platelet inhibition by low-dose aspirin in the majority of recipients.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Mindfulness-based Intervention does not Influence Cardiac Autonomic Control or Pattern of Physical Activity in Fibromyalgia During Daily Life: An Ambulatory, Multi-measure Randomized Controlled Trial.
Fibromyalgia (FM) is a syndrome characterized by severe pain, fatigue and sleep disturbance. There is evidence of central hyper-responsiveness to sensory stimulation and impaired cardiovascular autonomic control. Laboratory investigations suggest that mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) may improve autonomic functioning in FM. However, these findings may not reflect what occurs during naturalistic conditions, and MBSR studies during real-life functioning are lacking. We conducted a randomized controlled, 3-armed study with 168 female FM patients. This report describes cardiac, respiratory, and physical activity findings. ⋯ MBSR did not produce cardiac autonomic benefits or changes in daily activity in FM. Furthermore, the lack of an association between patient-experienced clinical improvement and objective physiological measures suggests that subjective changes in the wellbeing of FM patients over time are not related to alterations in the cardiorespiratory autonomic function or activity levels.
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This narrative review discusses the most recent up-to-date findings focused on the currently available "best clinical practice" regarding perioperative anesthesia care bundle factors and their effect on tumor progression. The main objective is to critically appraise the current literature on local anesthetics, regional outcome studies, opioids, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and their ability to decrease recurrence in patients undergoing cancer surgery. A brief discussion of additional topical perioperative factors relevant to the anesthesiologist including volatile and intravenous anesthetics, perioperative stress and anxiety, nutrition, and immune stimulation is included. ⋯ Volatile anesthetics have been shown to increase tumor formation, whereas preclinical and emerging clinical data from propofol indicate tumor protective qualities. The perioperative period in the cancer patient represents a unique environment where surgically mediated stress response leads to immune suppression. Regional anesthesia techniques when indicated in combination with multimodal analgesia that include NSAIDs, opioids, and local anesthetics to prevent the pathophysiologic effects of pain and neuroendocrine stress response should be viewed as an essential part of balanced anesthesia.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Economic evaluation of an implementation strategy for the management of low back pain in general practice.
In connection with the publication of a clinical practice guideline on the management of low back pain (LBP) in general practice in Denmark, a cluster randomised controlled trial was conducted. In this trial, a multifaceted guideline implementation strategy to improve general practitioners' treatment of patients with LBP was compared with a usual implementation strategy. The aim was to determine whether the multifaceted strategy was cost effective, as compared with the usual implementation strategy. ⋯ Sensitivity analyses showed that results were sensitive to uncertainty. In conclusion, the multifaceted implementation strategy was cost saving when compared with the usual strategy for implementing LBP clinical practice guidelines in general practice. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in effect, and the estimate was sensitive to uncertainty.
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Cost utility or cost effective analysis continues to take center stage in the United States for defining and measuring the value of treatments in interventional pain management. Appropriate cost utility analysis has been performed for caudal epidural injections, percutaneous adhesiolysis, and spinal cord stimulation. However, the literature pertaining to lumbar interlaminar epidural injections is lacking, specifically in reference to cost utility analysis derived from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with a pragmatic approach in a practical setting. ⋯ This cost utility analysis of lumbar interlaminar epidural injections in patients nonresponsive to conservative management in the treatment of disc herniation, central spinal stenosis, and axial or discogenic low back pain in the lumbar spine shows the clinical effectiveness and cost utility of these injections of $1,976.58 for direct costs with a total cost of $3,301 per QALY.