Annals of medicine
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Patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) is a newer technique for pain management. Patients are allowed to self-administer small analgesic bolus doses into a running intravenous infusion, intramuscularly, subcutaneously or even into the epidural space. Demands are usually controlled by computer-driven infusion pumps, but can also be delivered by disposable devices. ⋯ PCA has proved its importance for pain studies, e.g. for algesimetry, to determine predictors of postoperative pain, to describe drug interactions, to evaluate the concept of pre-emptive analgesia or for pharmacokinetic designs. It is concluded that PCA results have been urgently required in order to change the mind of physicians and nursing staff with respect to individual pain management strategies. Once this goal is achieved, PCA concepts should also be used for the improvement of more conventional techniques.
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Basic scientific evidence suggests that an analgesic intervention made before surgery will produce a better outcome than the same intervention made after surgery. The evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) which tested this hypothesis in patients is reviewed. Four studies with paracetamol or NSAIDs did not show any pre-emptive effect. ⋯ The opioid studies which did show a pre-emptive effect had other technical weaknesses. One way to combat lack of power would be to combine data (meta-analysis). This is very difficult in this field because of the outcome measures which investigators are using.
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This paper describes the responses of peripheral and central visceral nociceptive systems to acute injury and discusses these observations in relation to the concept of 'pre-emptive analgesia'. Visceral nociceptors are known to respond to injury but are also known to become sensitized to non-noxious stimuli during the inflammatory process that follows intense noxious stimulation. ⋯ Therefore it is proposed that the concept of 'pre-emptive analgesia', as such, has no neurophysiological basis. Any analgesic procedure aimed at reducing postoperative pain must not only prevent the arrival in the CNS of the initial afferent barrage evoked in nociceptive endings but also reduce or eliminate the persistent discharges of sensitized nociceptors during the inflammatory repair process that are critically important for the maintenance of the central pain state.
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Vulvodynia is a complex multifactorial and multidisciplinary clinical syndrome of unexplained vulvar pain, sexual dysfunction, and psychological disability. Because of the absence of abnormal physical findings among such patients, vulvodynia was long thought to be solely a psychosomatic syndrome. The incidence or prevalence of vulvodynia has not been well studied. ⋯ The most common subtypes are vulvar vestibulitis syndrome, cyclic vulvovaginitis and dysesthetic vulvodynia. Simple practice guidelines can be developed to facilitate the evaluation and management of such patients. Systematic epidemiological, etiological and therapeutic studies of vulvodynia are urgently needed.