• Pain · Sep 2013

    Review Meta Analysis

    Relationship between quantitative sensory testing and pain or disability in people with spinal pain-A systematic review and meta-analysis.

    • Markus Hübscher, Niamh Moloney, Andrew Leaver, Trudy Rebbeck, James H McAuley, and Kathryn M Refshauge.
    • University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. markus.huebscher@sydney.edu.au
    • Pain. 2013 Sep 1;154(9):1497-504.

    AbstractSensitization of the nervous system can present as pain hypersensitivity that may contribute to clinical pain. In spinal pain, however, the relationship between sensory hypersensitivity and clinical pain remains unclear. This systematic review examined the relationship between pain sensitivity measured via quantitative sensory testing (QST) and self-reported pain or pain-related disability in people with spinal pain. Electronic databases and reference lists were searched. Correlation coefficients for the relationship between QST and pain intensity or disability were pooled using random effects models. Subgroup analyses and mixed effects meta-regression were used to assess whether the strength of the relationship was moderated by variables related to the QST method or pain condition. One hundred and forty-five effect sizes from 40 studies were included in the meta-analysis. Pooled estimates for the correlation between pain threshold and pain intensity were -0.15 (95% confidence interval [CI]: -0.18 to -0.11) and for disability -0.16 (95% CI: -0.22 to -0.10). Subgroup analyses and meta-regression did not provide evidence that these relationships were moderated by the QST testing site (primary pain/remote), pain condition (back/neck pain), pain type (acute/chronic), or type of pain induction stimulus (eg, mechanical/thermal). Fair correlations were found for the relationship between pain intensity and thermal temporal summation (0.26, 95% CI: 0.09 to 0.42) or pain tolerance (-0.30, 95% CI: -0.45 to -0.13), but only a few studies were available. Our study indicates either that pain threshold is a poor marker of central sensitization or that sensitization does not play a major role in patients' reporting of pain and disability. Future research prospects are discussed.Copyright © 2013 International Association for the Study of Pain. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

      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…