Articles: function.
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The authors reviewed perioperative ocular complications and implications of ocular diseases during nonocular surgeries. Exposure keratopathy, the most common perioperative eye injury, is preventable. Ischemic optic neuropathy, the leading cause of perioperative blindness, has well-defined risk factors. ⋯ Differential diagnoses of visual dysfunction in the perioperative period and treatments are detailed. Although glaucoma is increasingly prevalent and often questions arise concerning perioperative anesthetic management, evidence-based recommendations to guide safe anesthesia care in patients with glaucoma are currently lacking. Patients with low vision present challenges to the anesthesia provider that are becoming more common as the population ages.
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Quantitative sensory testing (QST) assesses the functional integrity of small and large nerve fibre afferents and central somatosensory pathways; QST was assumed to provide insight into the mechanisms of neuropathy. We analysed QST profiles and phenotypes in patients with diabetes mellitus to study whether these could differentiate patients with and without pain and neuropathy. ⋯ This article, using quantitative sensory testing profiles in large cohorts of diabetic patients with and without polyneuropathy and pain, presents a continuum in the sensory profiles of diabetic patients, with more pronounced 'loss of function' abnormalities in painful polyneuropathy patients. Painful diabetic polyneuropathy probably represents a 'more progressed' type of neuropathy with more pronounced somatosensory nerve fibre degeneration. The proportion of 'gain of function' sensory abnormalities was low, and these offer limited understanding of pathophysiological mechanisms of spontaneous neuropathic pain.
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Comment Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Pragmatic Clinical Trial
In acute ischemic stroke, early IV tenecteplase was noninferior to alteplase for excellent functional outcome.
Menon BK, Buck BH, Singh N, et al. Intravenous tenecteplase compared with alteplase for acute ischaemic stroke in Canada (AcT): a pragmatic, multicentre, open-label, registry-linked, randomised, controlled, non-inferiority trial. Lancet. 2022;400:161-9. 35779553.
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The pathophysiology of a frozen shoulder (FS) is thought to be related to chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation may disturb the immune system and consequently the nervous system as part of an overarching system. The aim of this study was to determine the presence of disturbed autonomic nervous system function and altered central pain processing (CPP) in patients with FS. Secondarily, the presence of psychological variables (catastrophizing and hypervigilance) and self-reported associated symptoms of altered CPP in patients with FS were investigated. ⋯ On the basis of the effect sizes, between-group differences in allodynia, hyperalgesia, catastrophizing, and hypervigilance were clinically relevant, but only local allodynia, hyperalgesia, catastrophizing, and hypervigilance were statistically different. Therefore, obvious altered CPP was not present at the group level in patients with FS compared with controls.
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Expectancies for pain and pain relief are central to experimental models of placebo analgesia and nocebo hyperalgesia and are a promising target for clinical intervention in patients with chronic pain. Affective states may play an important role in modulating the degree to which expectancies influence pain, broadening the opportunities for intervention targets. However, findings to date have been mixed and mostly limited to laboratory designs. ⋯ Relatedly, higher morning positive affect predicted greater odds of experiencing a match between pain expectancies and pain experience when the expectation was for low, but not high, pain levels (odds ratio = 1.19, confidence interval: 1.01-1.41, P = 0.03). Negative affect, in contrast, did not significantly influence the assimilation of high pain expectancies with high pain experiences. These findings extend previous experimental studies by showing that the association of daily pain expectancies with pain experience varies as a function of affective state.