Bridging the gap in neuropathic pain treatment: The potential role of astaxanthin

Neuropathic pain is a challenging condition to treat. It is heterogeneous in nature and could be resistant to treatment with commonly prescribed analgesics. Current management strategies fail to achieve adequate or satisfactory pain relief in a high proportion of patients. The previous review mentioned that only less than 50% of patients can achieve good pain control with standard treatment. The available treatment only focuses in the symptom control, and does not interfere with the progressing damage of the nerve. Astaxanthin is a very potent anti-oxidant. In this review, we discuss about the potential use of astaxanthin for the add-on treatment of painful neuropathy.

A New Device for Thoracoscopic Cryoanalgesia in Pectus Excavatum Repair: Preliminary Single Center Experience

Introduction: Cryoanalgesia has been recently described as alternative technique for immediate and persistent pain treatment after pectus excavatum repair. Cryoanalgesia has the potentiality to reduce analgesic consumption and length of hospitalization. However, cryoanalgesia has not been standardized yet: the previous reports describe different techniques and systems and include only small series. In Europe, no reports on cryoanalgesia for pectus repair have been published so far.Materials and Methods: This is a prospective single center pilot study performed in adolescents undergoing minimally invasive pectus excavatum repair with a new cryoanalgesia system, using a probe designed specifically for thoracoscopy. This new double lumen probe has the theoretical advantage of freezing only in its tip, so reducing the risk of complications.Results: Seven patients undergoing pectus excavatum repair were treated with cryoanalgesia performed with the new probe. No complications of cryoanalgesia were reported. Total consumption of morphine during hospital stay was between 0.1 and 0.35 mg/kg, with no side effects reported. Mean time to discharge was 2.4 days. All patients reported a good pain control with a fair need of rescue medications for pain relief during the first week after discharge, and a very good pain control without need of rescue medications during following weeks.Conclusions: Our pilot study showed that the new cryoanalgesia device is efficacious in terms of pain control, hospital stay and resumption of post-operative activities. The cryoprobe designed allowed an easy and safe maneuver. A prospective trial is needed to better define the risks and benefits of this technique.

Pain Alleviation and Opioid Weaning in an 80-Year-Old with Chronic Foot Pain Following Injection Therapy with Perineural Dexmedetomidine and Dexamethasone

Opiates are routinely used for chronic pain patients, and up to 44% of them will have a prescription for an opiate medication for pain alleviation. However, of the 76 million adults prescribed opiates for pain management, about 12% report misuse, and a large number of these may find themselves addicted to opioid medications. Opioid addiction is an ongoing epidemic, costing many lives. Withdrawal is very difficult. This requires providers to consider alternative analgesic plans and minimize opiate use. Here we report the use of a dexamethasone-dexmedetomidine combination for a regional nerve block in an elderly woman chronically treated with opiate medications who had previously failed opiate weaning. Following her nerve block, she was able to completely wean off of opioids and continues having good pain control with an opioid-free regimen.

Palliative care pain control: inpatient consultation versus corounding models compared

BackgroundCompared with the current inpatient consultation model, a novel corounding model of care whereby palliative specialists round with oncology teams, increases healthcare collaboration and may improve quality of care for inpatients. Whether this translates to better pain control for patients is unexplored.ObjectiveTo determine whether the corounding model provides better pain control compared with the consultation model for cancer inpatients.MethodsCancer patients with moderate or severe pain severity during the admission were included in this observational study. Pain severity was determined using electronic records. Improvement to mild or no pain by day 3 of identification of moderate or severe pain was defined as good pain control and proportion of admissions achieving this was compared between models.ResultsA total of 142 and 128 admissions admitted under the consult and corounding model, respectively, had moderate or severe pain. The proportion of patients that achieved good pain control was 77.3% (99/128) and 71.8% (102/142) in the corounding and consult model, respectively. The difference in proportion of admissions achieving good pain control was significantly higher in the corounding model after adjusting for differences in baseline characteristics (unadjusted OR, 1.34; 95% CI, 0.77 to 2.33; adjusted OR, 2.25; 95% CI, 1.19 to 4.26).DiscussionThe odds of achieving good pain control was significantly better in the corounding model. However, the mechanism behind this is unexplored. This study can serve as precedence for future studies evaluating the corounding model of care.

Optimising the management of bladder pain syndrome

Objective: Clinicians have shown variable practice in the diagnosis and management of bladder pain syndrome (BPS). This study assessed pain localisation sites, common co-morbidities, investigations and treatment patterns in clinical practice. Patients and methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of 412 patients attending our pelvic pain clinic between 2004 and 2016. Frequency counts were used to summarise findings. Results: Pain in women ( N=388) was localised to the lower abdomen (92.0%), lower back (71.1%) and vagina (60.8%). Men ( N=24) typically presented with testicular pain with painful ejaculation (70.8%). Nearly all (95.4%) patients reported sexual dysfunction. Visceral neuropathic pain and autoimmune co-morbidities, such as irritable bowel syndrome, chronic headaches or migraines and skin lesions, were more prevalent in our cohort than in the general population. All patients had urine culture and sensitivities and flexible cystoscopy. Laparoscopy, urodynamic studies and bladder biopsies were mostly normal, but were essential in excluding other pathologies. Good pain control was achieved on amitriptyline (83.0%). Hydro-distension and benign bladder ulcer cauterisation provided temporary symptomatic relief. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that patient expectation management and education is essential in BPS, with most achieving good pain control with conservative measures and amitriptyline. Those receiving intravesical treatments will most likely require subsequent revisions. Level of evidence: Not applicable for this single-centre audit.

Tapering off long-term methadone: A case study

Opioid tapering may be necessary for patients on long-term opioids. Here, the authors presented a patient who had uncontrolled chronic musculoskeletal pain while on chronic methadone. Upon methadone tapering, the patient had been taking methadone for longer than six years and had severe methadone-related adverse effects. Using multidisciplinary interventions of patient education and counseling, physical interventions, and nonopioid medications, patient’s methadone was discontinued after longer than one year tapering with relatively good pain control. The tapering process highlights the importance of pain management during opioid tapering using multidisciplinary interventions to prevent and treat opioid withdrawal and pain relapses.

MIDSHAFT CLAVICLE FRACTURE

Introduction: Fracture of clavicle is common, occurring most commonly inmales accounting for approximately 2.5%of all fracture presenting to orthopedic surgeon.1 Thisstudy has been conducted to compare the broad arm sling and figure of eight bandage in thefirst 21 days of treatment with primary outcome measure of pain and disability. Study Design:Comparative study. Setting: Department of orthopedic surgery, Dow International MedicalCollege, Dow University hospital. Period: February 2015-2016. Material and Methods: 60eligible patients with a mean age of (15-60 years) were randomized to conservative treatmentwith either a broad arm sling or figure of eight bandage. After detailed counseling taking informedconsent we did non stratified randomization in blocks of two using the sealed envelope method.Patients were kept in strict follow up to complete the outcome measures the next day and onday seven, fourteen and twenty one. On each visit a Performa was filled known as SPADI havingtwo components of pain and disability and VAS on day one, seven, fourteen and twenty one.Results: Seventy patients were enrolled initially, out of them ten patients were dropped outdue to different reasons. Of the remaining 60 patients 30 were treated with broad arm sling and30 were treated with figure of eight bandage. The two groups were randomized fulfilling theinclusion criteria. The Mean VAS on the first day of treatment in the broad arm sling group was5.433 SD 1.04 (p= 0.034, 95% CI 0.10 -2.46) where as in figure of eight group was 8.9 (SD 10.8).On subsequent visits (Day 7,14,21) VAS of broad arm sling was 3.83, 1.40,1 whereas figure ofeight was 5.76, 4.3, 3.469. This result clearly shows good pain control in broad arm sling groupas compared to the figure of eight group. The mean SPADI on the first day of treatment was94.52(SD 2.273) in broad arm sling group, on the other hand it was 93.87(SD 2.239) in figure ofeight group. In follow up visits of day 7, 14 and 21 score was as follows in broad arm group 3.83(SD 0.79), 1.4(SD 0.49), 1(SD 0.0), it was 5.76(SD 1.04), 4.3(SD 0.740), 3.4(SD0.68) in figure ofeight group. It also shows better result in terms of pain and functional outcome. Conclusion:Fracture clavicle is still managed conservatively in majority of the cases, either with the figure ofeight bandage or polyarm sling. Patient’s outcome in terms of pain management and functionalrange of motion in poly arm sling is better than figure of eight bandage.

Does Patient Perception of Pain Influence How Patients Rate Their Experience after Total Knee Arthroplasty?

Press Ganey (PG) is an increasingly used measure to determine patient satisfaction. It has yet to be determined which factors influence the PG scores most amongst patients with inadequate pain control after total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Therefore, we assessed (1) which PG factors influence overall hospital rating (OHR) in patients who had poor pain control in comparison to those with good pain control and (2) whether pain control influences OHR during hospital admission following TKA. An institutional database search was performed between November 2009 and January 2015 for all TKA patient responders to the PG questionnaire. This yielded 148 patients (mean = 61 years; range, 24–92 years). Pain control was graded on a scale from 1(least satisfied) to 4 (most satisfied). Patients were separated into two cohorts: those who had poor pain control (score ≤ 2) and those who had good pain control (score > 2). Multiple regression analysis assessed the weighted means (β) of all PG categories on OHR. To compare the demographics and survey responses between the two cohorts, χ 2 and t-tests were utilized. For patients with poor pain control, the responsiveness of hospital support staff had the highest influence on OHR (β = 2.103), followed by communication about medications (β = 1.230). For patients with good pain control, communication with nurses had the strongest effect on hospital rating (β = 0.233, p = 0.056), followed by communication about medications (β = 0.200, p = 0.049). The patients with good pain control had significantly higher OHR (6.0 vs. 9.1, p = ≤ 0.001) and scores in each category of PG. Communication about medications and responsiveness of hospital staff had a significant effect on OHR. Well-controlled patients were highly influenced by communication of medication and communication with nurses. Moreover, patients with good pain control had significantly higher scores in all areas of PG survey, signifying that patient perception of pain affects patient satisfaction with the hospital. Orthopaedists should be involved in direct efforts to improve pain control as well as address the aforementioned PG domains.

Health-Care Workers’ Judgments About Pain in Older Palliative Care Patients With and Without Delirium

Delirium complicates pain assessment and management in advanced cancer. This retrospective cohort study compared health-care workers’ (HCWs) cancer pain judgments between older patients with advanced cancer with and without a diagnosis of delirium. We reviewed HCWs’ daily chart notations about pain presence and good pain control in 149 inpatients with advanced cancer, ≥65 years of age, admitted to a palliative care inpatient unit. Any day with 1 or more notations of pain presence was counted as 1 day with pain; days with notation(s) indicating good pain control were similarly counted. Proportions of days that HCWs judged inpatients to have pain and good pain control were calculated. Patients with and without a delirium diagnosis were compared on both pain outcomes. The moderating effect of highest analgesic class administered was examined. Although most patients received opioid analgesics, mean proportions of days with judged pain were high (39%-60%) and mean proportions of days with judged good pain control were low (<25%) across groups. Among patients receiving either opioid or nonopioid medication, patients with delirium demonstrated lower proportions of days with judged good pain control than patients without delirium ( P ≤ .001), even though groups did not differ in proportions of days with judged pain ( P = .62). Cancer pain is difficult to manage in advanced cancer, especially when delirium is present; however, misinterpretation of delirium symptoms as pain cues may inflate pain judgments. Findings require replication but suggest the need for better pain assessment in older patients with advanced cancer and delirium.

Postoperative Management and Radiography

In the early postoperative period, good pain control is essential. Regimes of pain management appropriate for total knee arthroplasty may not be suited to the very rapid mobilisation that is possible after UKA through a minimally invasive approach. A multimodal approach is best with minimal opiate use. Different regimes are used successfully in different institutions.