Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Few studies have examined relations between one important aspect of spiritual/religious functioning-spiritual distress-and pain-related outcomes, and none has examined how spiritual distress and depression conjointly relate to chronic pain. The goal of the present study, then, was to examine veterans' spiritual distress as a predictor of two aspects of chronic pain, catastrophizing and interference, testing a mediational model of depression. ⋯ These results have implications for further research in spiritually integrated care as a component of holistic, integrative approaches to the management of chronic pain.
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Correlation between radiologic structural abnormalities and clinical symptoms in low back pain patients is poor. There is an unmet clinical need to image inflammation in pain conditions to aid diagnosis and guide treatment. Ferumoxytol, an ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide (USPIO) nanoparticle, is clinically used to treat iron deficiency anemia and showed promise in imaging tissue inflammation in human. We explored whether ferumoxytol can be used to identify tissue and nerve inflammation in pain conditions in animals and humans. ⋯ Ferumoxytol-enhanced MRI can identify tissue and nerve inflammation and may provide a promising diagnostic tool in assessing pain conditions in humans.