Pain
-
Review Meta Analysis
Relationship between quantitative sensory testing and pain or disability in people with spinal pain-A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Sensitization 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. ⋯ 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.