Readers should understand that patients not only have a fear going blind, they also fear the pain of the treatment....
Parents are less anxious about their children getting vaccinations. ...
Jacob M. Vigil, PhD
Department of Psychology
University of New Mexico
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: For the past several years we have been using observational research designs as a means to overcome some of the logistical and legal barriers for conducting patient outcomes medical cannabis research. In partnership with the software developers of the Releaf App which currently is the largest repository of user-entered information on the consumption and effects of cannabis use in the United States, we have been able to measure how patients choose to consume cannabis and the effects of those choices in real-time. Since its release in 2016, the commercially developed Releaf App has been the only publicly available, incentive-free patient educational software program designed for recording how individual cannabis usage sessions correspond to immediate changes in symptom intensity levels and experienced side effects.
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Dr. Peter Schmidt, MD, MSc
Senior Director, medical Affairs and Clinical Development
Zosano Pharma
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: This was a post-hoc analysis of Zosano’s pivotal efficacy trial using its adhesive dermally-applied microarray (ADAM) zolmitriptan formulation, M207. The trial found that M207 was effective versus placebo for the co-primary endpoints of pain freedom and most bothersome symptom (MBS) freedom, both at two hours. The MBS endpoint was just ratified as a new endpoint in the FDA’s February 2018 guidance for acute migraine trials. The stated aim of this new endpoint is “…to better align the study outcome with the symptom(s) of primary importance to patients…” This is logical, as a given migraine patient may not experience all four previous symptom endpoints (pain, photophobia, phonophobia, nausea). (more…)
Christine Goertz DC, PhD
Vice Chancellor for Research and Health Policy
Palmer College of Chiropractic
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Low back pain in the leading cause of physical disability worldwide, with up to 80% of US adults seeking care for this debilitating condition at some point in their lives. Low-back pain is also one of the most common causes of disability in U.S. military personnel.
Although a number of studies have previously evaluated chiropractic care for low back pain, the vast majority had small sample sizes and did not study chiropractic as part of a multi-disciplinary approach to care in real world settings, including the military.
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Daniel Albrecht, PhD
Research Fellow in Radiology, Harvard Medical School
Research Fellow, Massachusetts General Hospital
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: A great deal of preclinical work in animal models of pain has established that activation of peripheral immune cells or, in the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), immune cells called “glia” (microglia and astrocytes) play a key role in the establishment and/or maintenance of persistent pain. For instance, if you pharmacologically block activation of these cells in the nervous system, you are able to reduce/inhibit/prevent pain behaviors, e.g. in animals who have received a nerve injury.
This observation is very exciting, because it suggests that blocking neuroinflammation may be a viable way of treating pain. However, the evidence linking human chronic pain with neuroinflammation has so far been limited.
In this study we show, for the first time, that patients with chronic sciatica (that is, back pain that shoots down the leg) demonstrate elevations in the levels of a protein called the translocator protein (TSPO) in the spinal cord and in the nerve roots.
Because TSPO is a marker of neuroinflammation, our results suggest that sciatica is associated with neuroinflammation.
While on average patients do show elevations in the levels of the TSPO, we also saw significant variability across individuals. Importantly, patients that show stronger elevations (in the nerve roots) were those who benefit the most from receiving a local anti-inflammatory treatment (epidural spinal injection). This makes sense: patients whose nerve roots are inflamed benefit from an anti-inflammatory treatment. Those whose nerve roots aren’t inflamed, don’t receive the same benefit. In the latter case, the source of the inflammation and pain may not be the nerve roots, but may be the spinal cord, or, as we showed in a previous paper (Loggia et al., Brain 2015), the brain. (more…)
Paul A. Moore, DMD, PhD, MPH
School of Dental Medicine
University of Pittsburgh
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Effective pain management is a priority in dental practice. Government and private agencies highlight the need to provide optimal pain relief, balancing potential benefits and harms of both opioid and nonopioid analgesic agents. The purpose of our study is to summarize the available evidence on the benefits and harms of analgesic agents, focusing on preexisting systematic reviews.
We found combinations of ibuprofen and acetaminophen as having the highest association with treatment benefit in adult patients and the highest proportion of adult patients who experienced maximum pain relief. Diflunisal, acetaminophen, and oxycodone were found to have the longest duration of action in adult patients. Medication and medication combinations that included opioids were among those associated most frequently with acute adverse events in both child and adult-aged patient populations.
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Deborah S. Cummins, PhD
Director, Research, Quality and Scientific Affairs
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons
On behalf of the researchers:
David Jevsevar, MD, MBA; Gregory A. Brown, MD, PHD, and Deborah S. Cummins, PhD
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: It is estimated that individuals have a 45% risk of developing knee osteoarthritis (OA) in their lifetime. As a result of the shifting demographics of the US, where an increasing percentage of the population is older than 65, the burden of knee OA will continue to increase. To help deal with this burden, effective nonsurgical treatments are needed to manage knee OA symptoms associated with pain and function before surgical intervention becomes necessary. To determine which non-surgical options are best, we performed a network meta-analysis exploring mixed treatment comparisons for nonsurgical treatment of knee osteoarthritis in order to effectively rank the various nonsurgical treatment options from best to worst.
Our network meta-analysis suggests that the single most effective nonsurgical treatment for improving knee function is function is naproxen, followed by diclofenac, celecoxib, and ibuprofen. When considering pain and function together, our data suggest that naproxen is the most effective treatment followed by IA corticosteroid injection.
The single most effective short-term (4-6 weeks) treatment for decreasing pain is intra-articular (IA) corticosteroid injection, followed by ibuprofen, IA platelet rich plasma, and naproxen. Additionally, intra-articular hyaluronic acid injections never achieved a rank in the top five treatments for pain, function, or combined pain and function. An analysis of 12 articles also found that HA is not significantly different than IA placebo in effect.
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Chenchen Wang MD, MSc
Professor of Medicine
Tufts University School of Medicine
Director, Center For Complementary And Integrative Medicine
Division of Rheumatology
Tufts Medical Center Boston, MA 02111
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Patients with chronic widespread pain often try many different types of pain medications, anti-depressants, physical therapy, and other approaches, and commonly find that none of these therapies work for them. Finding safe, effective approaches for pain management is an urgent priority. Previous evidence suggested that Tai Chi, a multi-dimensional mind-body practice that integrates physical, psychosocial, and behavioral elements, may be especially suited to address both chronic pain and associated psychological and somatic symptoms. In our most recent study published in the BMJ, we directly compared the effectiveness of Tai Chi versus aerobic exercise, which is a standard care non-drug treatment for fibromyalgia. (more…)
Lisa Gfrerer, MD PhD
Clinical Fellow in Surgery
Brigham and Women's Hospital
William Gerald Austen MD
Chief, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
Chief, Division of Burn Surgery
Massachusetts General Hospital
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?
Response: Migraine surgery patients at our institution are chronic pain patients who have failed conservative therapy and are severely disabled by their disease.
We initiated this study to understand two important points. First, it was previously unclear how to categorize these patients in terms of pain intensity and disability on the spectrum of better known pain conditions such as chronic back pain/ nerve pain/ carpal tunnel. This is very important to appreciate the extent of this disease. Second, instead of collecting migraine characteristic such as decrease in migraine days/ duration/ pain, we wanted to understand how functionally disabled these patients are in their daily lives and how much better they get after surgery. This is ultimately what matters to patients.
We therefore decided to evaluate our outcomes by using the Pain Self Efficacy Questionnaires (PSEQ). This validated pain questionnaire has been used to describe pain intensity/disability in patients with different acute and chronic pain conditions.
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