Anesthesiology
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Efficacy of Duloxetine in Chronic Low Back Pain with a Neuropathic Component: A Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo-controlled Crossover Trial.
Among patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP), approximately 37% show signs of a neuropathic pain component (radicular pain). Treatment of this condition remains challenging. Therefore, the current study aimed to investigate the efficacy of duloxetine in the treatment of CLBP patients with neuropathic leg pain. ⋯ In this crossover study, duloxetine proved to be superior to placebo for the treatment of CLBP with a neuropathic leg pain.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
A Smartphone-based Decision Support Tool Improves Test Performance Concerning Application of the Guidelines for Managing Regional Anesthesia in the Patient Receiving Antithrombotic or Thrombolytic Therapy.
The American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (ASRA) consensus statement on regional anesthesia in the patient receiving antithrombotic or thrombolytic therapy is the standard for evaluation and management of these patients. The authors hypothesized that an electronic decision support tool (eDST) would improve test performance compared with native physician behavior concerning the application of this guideline. ⋯ eDST use improved application of the ASRA guidelines compared with the native clinician behavior in a testing environment.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Disambiguating Pharmacodynamic Efficacy from Behavior with Neuroimaging: Implications for Analgesic Drug Development.
Attrition rates of new analgesics during drug development are high; poor assay sensitivity with reliance on subjective outcome measures being a crucial factor. ⋯ Functional imaging with central sensitization can be used as a sensitive mechanism-based assay to guide go/no-go decisions on selecting analgesics effective in neuropathic pain in early human drug development. We also show analgesic modulation of neural activity by using resting-state functional connectivity, a less challenging paradigm that is ideally suited for patient studies because it requires no task or pain provocation.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Pregabalin Has Analgesic, Ventilatory, and Cognitive Effects in Combination with Remifentanil.
Pregabalin is widely used perioperatively. The authors explored the effects of pregabalin, remifentanil, and their combination on experimental pain, ventilatory, and cognitive function. ⋯ The combination of pregabalin and remifentanil had additive analgesic effects, pregabalin potentiated remifentanil ventilatory depression, and the combination adversely affected cognition. These results question the clinical benefit of the combination compared with higher doses of opioids.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
New versus Conventional Helmet for Delivering Noninvasive Ventilation: A Physiologic, Crossover Randomized Study in Critically Ill Patients.
The helmet is a well-tolerated interface for noninvasive ventilation, although it is associated with poor patient-ventilator interaction. A new helmet (NH) has proven to attenuate this limitation of the standard helmet (SH) in both bench study and healthy volunteers. The authors compared a NH and a SH in intensive care unit patients receiving noninvasive ventilation for prevention of postextubation respiratory failure; both helmets were also compared with the endotracheal tube in place before extubation. ⋯ Compared with a SH, a NH improved comfort and patient-ventilator interaction.