• Pain · Aug 2002

    Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial

    Local cooling does not prevent hyperalgesia following burn injury in humans.

    • Mads U Werner, Birgit Lassen, Juri L Pedersen, and Henrik Kehlet.
    • Acute Pain Service, Department of Anesthesiology, Hvidovre University Hospital, DK 2650 Hvidovre, Copenhagen, Denmark. madswerner@medscape.com
    • Pain. 2002 Aug 1;98(3):297-303.

    AbstractOne of the oldest methods of pain relief following a burn injury is local application of ice or cold water. Experimental data indicate that cooling may also reduce the severity of tissue injury and promote wound healing, but there are no controlled studies in humans evaluating the anti-inflammatory or anti-hyperalgesic potential of early cooling after thermal injury. Twenty-four healthy volunteers participated in this randomized, single-blinded study. Following baseline measurements, which included inflammatory variables (skin temperature, erythema index) and sensory variables (thermal and mechanical detection thresholds, thermal and mechanical pain responses, area of secondary hyperalgesia), first degree burn injuries were induced on both calves by contact thermodes (12.5 cm(2), 47 degrees C for 7 min). Eight minutes after the burn injury, contact thermodes (12.5 cm(2)) were again applied on the burns. One of the thermodes cooled the burn (8 degrees C for 30 min) whereas the other thermode was a non-active dummy on the control burn. Inflammatory and sensory variables were followed for 160 min after end of the cooling procedure. The burn injury induced significant increases in skin temperature (P<0.0005), erythema index (P<0.0001), thermal pain responses (P<0.0005), mechanical pain responses (P<0.005) and secondary hyperalgesia, and significant decreases in heat pain threshold (P<0.0005) and mechanical pain threshold (P<0.0005). There were no post-cooling effects on skin temperature (P>0.5), erythema (P>0.9), heat pain threshold (P>0.5), thermal or mechanical pain responses (P>0.5) or the development of secondary hyperalgesia (P>0.4) compared with the control burn. However, a significant, albeit transient, increase in cold detection threshold was observed on the cooled burn side (P<0.0001). In conclusion, cooling with 8 degrees C for 30 min following a first degree burn injury in humans does not attenuate inflammatory or hyperalgesic responses compared with a placebo-treated control burn.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…