Pain

Promising advances in research hint at the day when truly tailored pain management will be possible, allowing us to move past our current model of treatment.

One orthopedic surgeon estimates University of Louisville sophomore guard Kevin Ware will return to the basketball court after six months of healing and rehabilitation following emergency surgery on the athlete's compound fracture in his right tibia.

Severe neuropathic pain due to diabetic peripheral neuropathy is associated with negative health impact and increased healthcare utilization, underscoring the need for the development of safe and effective treatments.

Data presented at the 2013 AAN Annual Meeting indicate that MAP0004, which delivers dihydroergotamine (DHE) via oral inhalation, is effective in the acute treatment of severe migraine pain.

Researchers successfully treated a patient with refractory complex regional pain syndrome by inducing a coma with ketamine and dexmedetomidine.

Study results show that intrathecal ziconotide provides significant pain relief for patients with refractory painful myelopathies and neuropathies.

As more than 60 percent of women with temporomandibular disorders (TMD) also exhibit abdominal pain consistent with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) symptoms, two researchers in the neural and pain sciences department of the University of Maryland School of Dentistry, in Baltimore, have developed a model to better illustrate the two conditions' comorbidity.

MRI data shows that multiple sclerosis patients with central neuropathic pain often have lesions focused in the center of the mid-thoracic spinal cord.

Though the Crohn's disease activity index (CDAI) is commonly applied in large Crohn's disease clinical trials to distinguish symptoms resulting from inflammation, a study published online Feb. 21 in Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics demonstrated the index does not differentiate between active Crohn's disease patients and patients with the non-inflammatory irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

Several studies recently have looked at the relationship between irritable bowel syndrome and increased pain sensitivity.

Sports medicine clinicians from the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), in New York City, report that platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections improve joint pain and function in patients with osteoarthritis, a leading cause of disability that affects more than 47 million people in the United States.

Though original results of the five-year Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT) determined surgically-treated spinal stenosis (SpS) patients showed significant advantage in body pain and physical function after two years than their nonsurgically-treated counterparts, a subgroup analysis published in the Feb. 15 issue of Spine found patients who received epidural steroid injections (ESI) in the SPORT study exhibited a worse outcome through four years' follow-up, regardless of surgical or nonsurgical treatment.

The push to provide better pain care and ensure adequate analgesia for patients living with chronic pain led to liberalized opioid prescription practices that have been accompanied by a massive increase in the abuse, misuse, and diversion of prescription opioids. Efforts to combat this include technological remedies such as "abuse-deterrent" formulations of opioids and educational approaches such as the REMS program approved by the FDA in 2012.

With celiac disease becoming more prevalent, especially in adults, what are the most effective approaches to testing patients for this disease, and are there effective management strategies that can be used in conjunction with a gluten-free diet?

Expert advice from the 2013 AGA-ASGE Clinical Congress of Gastroenterology and Hepatology on managing diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain, and other symptoms associated with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

The Canadian government's recent decision to allow the sale of a generic version of the original formulation of OxyContin could have serious consequences for efforts to curb opioid abuse, misuse, and diversion in the US.

Steve Gelfand, MD, secretary of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing (PROP) responds to recent comments by Drs. Cole and Webster in Pain Management.

Confusion between methadone and other medications with lookalike names can cause life-threatening errors.

Lynn Webster, MD, President-elect of the American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM) talks about the petition submitted to the FDA by Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing (PROP) and the AAPM response; the current dialogue on the risks and benefits of prescription opioids for managing chronic noncancer pain; and the future of pain management.

Does the research show any significant difference between anti-tumor necrosis factor drugs in terms of their effectiveness for treating psoriatic arthritis?

With most medical schools devoting only a few curriculum hours to pain management training, many physicians begin their medical career underprepared to meet the needs of patients suffering with chronic pain. Here, Barry Cole, MD, identifies several key concepts that would help improve pain care in the US if only more physicians would learn about them sooner.

FDA advisory committee votes against recommending approval for the first single-entity extended-release hydrocodone product.

Recently, a group calling itself Physicians for the Responsible Opioid Prescribing proposed several radical changes to the way we treat patients with chronic noncancer pain, calling for limits on the dose and duration of opioid treatment that would in effect deny these medications to the majority of patients now receiving them for noncancer pain.

Brief summaries of recently launched clinical trials for post-operative pain, low back pain, pelvic pain, migraine, and other forms of chronic pain.

This handy resource from the Pennsylvania Medical Society provides valuable guidance for clinicians and their staff on identifying patients who may abuse, misuse, or divert prescription opioids.

Committee to vote on whether the efficacy, safety, and risk-benefit profile of Zohydro ER supports the approval of the NDA submitted by Zogenix.

News on new therapies for osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, prescription drug monitoring programs, post-operative opioid use, the cost of chronic pain, and other developments in the field of pain management.

News on opioid REMS, chronic pain apps, opioid safety in hospitals, and other developments in the field of pain management.

The variety of mechanisms that play a part in pathologic pain perception leads to a great deal of complexity and variation in the clinical presentation and severity of fibromyalgia symptoms, as well as a high degree of variability in patient response to treatment.

Overweight women face a higher risk of rheumatoid arthritis than their normal-weight peers, according to a study presented at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Washington, DC.