Pain practice : the official journal of World Institute of Pain
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Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
Quantitative sensory testing for spinal cord stimulation in patients with chronic neuropathic pain.
A prospective pilot study was conducted, attempting to identify objective tests that would help clinicians to assess the efficacy of spinal cord stimulation (SCS) trial preceding permanent device implantation. ⋯ Our findings, which agree with those of a few other studies, suggest that the vibration threshold and the tolerance to electrical stimulation at 5 and 250 Hz tests can assist the clinician to select the right patients for permanent stimulation.
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Multicenter Study
Patient burden of trigeminal neuralgia: results from a cross-sectional survey of health state impairment and treatment patterns in six European countries.
Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is an uncommon neuropathic condition associated with excruciating facial pain. It is important to determine the effect of TN pain on patient functioning and to characterize relevant pharmacologic treatment patterns and health resource utilization in general practice. Eighty-two patients with TN were identified in a general practice setting during an observational survey of broad neuropathic pain syndromes in six European countries. ⋯ Pain severity was significantly associated with reduced EQ-5D health state valuation (P < 0.001) and greater pain interference (mBPI-SF) (P < 0.001). These findings demonstrate that TN pain presents a substantial patient burden expressed as interference with daily functioning and reduced health status associated with pain severity. This burden may result from both suboptimal management strategies and the frequent resistance of this neuropathic condition to treatment, and suggests a need for more effective pain management strategies.