Pain physician
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Review Historical Article
Importance of urine drug testing in the treatment of chronic noncancer pain: implications of recent medicare policy changes in kentucky.
Urine drug testing has become a widely used tool in American society for deterring illicit drug use. In the practice of medicine, urine drug testing is commonly used to help diagnose substance misuse, abuse, or addiction. ⋯ Regular urine drug testing should be a part of acute and chronic pain management whether or not the patient has any signs or symptoms of drug misuse.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Protocol for evaluation of the comparative effectiveness of percutaneous adhesiolysis and caudal epidural steroid injections in low back and/or lower extremity pain without post surgery syndrome or spinal stenosis.
Treatment of chronic low back pain with or without lower extremity pain continues to be a challenge. Epidural steroids are commonly utilized in patients after the failure of conservative treatment. The results of epidural steroid injections have been variable based on the pathophysiology, the route of administration, injected drugs, and utilization of fluoroscopy. In patients resistant to fluoroscopically directed epidural injections, percutaneous epidural adhesiolysis and percutaneous targeted delivery of injections with or without adhesiolysis has been recommended. Percutaneous adhesiolysis has been studied in chronic pain syndromes related to post laminectomy syndrome and spinal stenosis with encouraging results. There is a paucity of literature regarding the effectiveness of the targeted delivery of medications with or without epidural adhesiolysis in patients recalcitrant to epidural steroid injections without a history of surgery and spinal stenosis. ⋯ This study is limited by potentially inadequate double blinding and the lack of a placebo group.
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Interventional pain management now stands at the crossroads at what is described as "the perfect storm." The confluence of several factors has led to devastating results for interventional pain management. This article seeks to provide a perspective to various issues producing conditions conducive to creating a "perfect storm" such as use and abuse of interventional pain management techniques, and in the same context, use and abuse of various non-interventional techniques. The rapid increase in opioid drug prescribing, costs to health care, large increases in death rates, and random and rampant drug testing, can also lead to increases in health care utilization. ⋯ Based on the results of this review, various issues of relevance to modern interventional pain management are discussed and the viewpoints of several experts debated. In conclusion, supporters of interventional pain management disagree on multiple aspects for various reasons while detractors claim that interventional pain management should not exist as a speciality. Issues to be addressed include appropriate use of evidence-based medicine (EBM), overuse, overutilization, and abuse.
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Nucleoplasty is a minimally invasive procedure for treating pain caused by symptomatic disc herniation that is refractory to conservative therapy. Observational studies have reported differing outcomes for this procedure and thus its effectiveness is yet to be determined. ⋯ Observational studies suggest that nucleoplasty is a potentially effective minimally invasive treatment for patients with symptomatic disc herniations who are refractory to conservative therapy. The recommendation is a level 1C, strongly supporting the therapeutic efficacy of this procedure. However, prospective randomized controlled trials with higher quality of evidence are necessary to confirm efficacy and risks, and to determine ideal patient selection for this procedure.
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Intracranial neurostimulation for pain relief is most frequently delivered by stimulating the motor cortex, the sensory thalamus, or the periaqueductal and periventricular gray matter. The stimulation of these sites through MCS (motor cortex stimulation) and DBS (deep brain stimulation) has proven effective for treating a number of neuropathic and nociceptive pain states that are not responsive or amenable to other therapies or types of neurostimulation. Prospective randomized clinical trials to confirm the efficacy of these intracranial therapies have not been published. ⋯ DBS may be employed for a number of nociceptive and neuropathic pain states, including cluster headaches, chronic low back pain, failed back surgery syndrome, peripheral neuropathic pain, facial deafferentation pain, and pain that is secondary to brachial plexus avulsion. The unique lack of stimulation-induced perceptual experience with MCS makes MCS uniquely suited for blinded studies of its effectiveness. This article will review the scientific rationale, indications, surgical techniques, and outcomes of intracranial neuromodulation procedures for the treatment of chronic pain.