Pain physician
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Lumbar sympathetic blocks and chemical sympathectomies are used for the pain treatment of peripheral arterial occlusive disease or sympathetically maintained pain syndrome after nerve injury or complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). A 30-year-old patient was referred to the pain department with all the clinical signs and symptoms of a CRPS of the right foot one and a half years after being surgically treated for rupture of the achilles tendon. An inpatient admission was necessary due to insufficient pain reduction upon the current treatment, strong allodynia in the medial distal right lower leg and decreased load-bearing capacity of the right foot. ⋯ This was a long-lasting lesion of the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve following a CT-guided chemical sympathectomy with a low-volume ethanol 96% application - a complication which has not been described in literature until now. This is probably caused by broad dissemination of the neurolytic agent along the psoas muscle despite a correct needle position and spread of contrast agent. The development of this nerve injury even after injection of a small volume of ethanol (2 mL) may be delayed.
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Pain prevalence at various stages of cancer ranges from 27% to 60% for outpatients. Yet, how pain is managed in this patient group is poorly understood. ⋯ Pain remains a significant problem in medical oncology outpatients, and often pain is insufficiently managed. Patients with a high pain intensity were more at risk to experience pain related interference with daily activities, but even some patients suffering mild pain experienced this. As adequate pain relief for up to 86% of the patients with cancer should be feasible, pain in medical oncology outpatients is still undertreated. Taking into account the interference of pain with daily activities and predictors of pain will facilitate cancer pain management. The study has been approved by the Medical Ethics Committee (CMO) in all 7 hospitals (METC protocol number 2011/020) and has been registered by the Dutch Trial register (NTR): NTR2739.
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Clinical Trial
The effect of lumbar sympathetic ganglion block on gynecologic cancer-related lymphedema.
Eighteen to 25% of patients after gynecological cancer treatment suffer from lower limb lymphedema (LLL) that decreases the quality of life of gynecological cancer survivors. Lumbar sympathetic ganglion block (LSGB) is widely used in practice for the evaluation and management of sympathetically mediated pain in the lower limbs. Several articles have suggested that sympathetic ganglion block could be an effective treatment for lymphedema. ⋯ We suggest that LSGB can be one of the treatment options for patients suffering from LLL after gynecologic cancer treatment. Our result could provide a basis for a randomized controlled trial in future investigations. The pain physicians can play an important role as one of the multidisciplinary team for a comprehensive treatment of LLL.
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The high prevalence of persistent low back pain and growing number of diagnostic and therapeutic modalities employed to manage chronic low back pain and the subsequent impact on society and the economy continue to hold sway over health care policy. Among the multiple causes responsible for chronic low back pain, the contributions of the sacroiliac joint have been a subject of debate albeit a paucity of research. At present, there are no definitive conservative, interventional or surgical management options for managing sacroiliac joint pain. It has been shown that the increases were highest for facet joint interventions and sacroiliac joint blocks with an increase of 310% per 100,000 Medicare beneficiaries from 2000 to 2011. There has not been a systematic assessment of the utilization and growth patterns of sacroiliac joint injections. ⋯ This study illustrates the explosive growth of sacroiliac joint injections even more than facet joint interventions. Furthermore, certain groups of providers showed substantial increases. Overall, increases from 2008 to 2010 were nominal with 1%, but some states showed over 20% increases whereas some others showed over 20% decreases.