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Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is an efficacious chronic pain treatment most commonly used in middle-aged patients. Results from previous studies that investigated SCS' effects in older patient populations have been equivocal. We examine whether SCS outcomes correlate with age.
Learn More >Naratriptan, marketed in a low oral dose of 2.5 mg, is generally regarded as a less-effective triptan with a slower onset of action than most other triptans in the treatment of migraine attacks. In this review, naratriptan will be compared with sumatriptan, the standard triptan.
Learn More >To determine the current availability of care for headaches, in particular migraine in the Asian Oceanian region.
Learn More >Headache attributed to temporomandibular disorders and myalgia are two diagnoses included in the diagnostic criteria for temporomandibular disorders (DC/TMD). However, it is not clear if these two diagnoses are different clinical entities given their similar presentation and way in which they are diagnosed, when the myalgia is within the temporalis muscle. The purpose of this retrospective study was to assess the overlap between headache attributed to temporomandibular disorders and myalgia of the temporalis muscle.
Learn More >For patients with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee, pain is the most debilitating symptom. Although it has been proposed that the chronic phase of the monoiodoacetate (MIA)-induced rodent model of knee joint pain may be superior to other chronic or acute OA models for assessing the analgesic efficacy of novel molecules, relatively few pharmacological studies have been conducted in the chronic phase of this model. Hence this study was designed to use pharmacological methods to characterize the chronic phase of the MIA-induced rat model of knee joint OA pain. Rats received a single intraarticular injection of MIA at 2.5 mg or vehicle (saline) into the left (ipsilateral) knee joint. Pain behaviour was assessed by measuring paw withdrawal thresholds (PWTs) in the hindpaws pre-MIA injection twice-weekly until study completion on day 42. Mechanical allodynia was fully developed in the ipsilateral hindpaws (PWTs ≤ 6g) from day 7 and it persisted until day 42. MIA-injected rats with PWTs ≤ 6g in the ipsilateral hindpaws received single doses of one of four clinically-available drugs that represent four distinct pharmacological classes, viz gabapentin, amitriptyline, meloxicam and morphine, according to a 'washout' protocol with at least 48 h between successive doses. Gabapentin evoked dose-dependent anti-allodynia as did morphine whereas amitriptyline and meloxicam were inactive. Our findings are aligned with clinical data showing that gabapentin and morphine alleviated OA pain in the knee. The lack of efficacy of amitriptyline is consistent with the loss of descending diffuse noxious inhibitory controls reported by others in this model.
Learn More >Skin pain (described as discomfort or soreness) is increasingly recognized as a symptom of atopic dermatitis which impacts patient quality of life. This analysis examined the effect of baricitinib on skin pain in atopic dermatitis in three phase 3 studies (BREEZE-AD1, -AD2, and -AD7).
Learn More >Migraine is three times more prevalent in people with bipolar disorder or depression. The relationship between schizophrenia and migraine is less certain although glutamatergic and serotonergic neurotransmission are implicated in both. A shared genetic basis to migraine and mental disorders has been suggested but previous studies have reported weak or non-significant genetic correlations and five shared risk loci. Using the largest samples to date and novel statistical tools, we aimed to determine the extent to which migraine's polygenic architecture overlaps with bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia beyond genetic correlation, and to identify shared genetic loci. Summary statistics from genome-wide association studies were acquired from large-scale consortia for migraine (n cases=59,674; n controls=316,078), bipolar disorder (n cases=20,352; n controls=31,358), depression (n cases=170,756; n controls=328,443) and schizophrenia (n cases=40,675, n controls=64,643). We applied the bivariate causal mixture model to estimate the number of disorder-influencing variants shared between migraine and each mental disorder, and the conditional/conjunctional false discovery rate method to identify shared loci. Loci were functionally characterised to provide biological insights. Univariate MiXeR analysis revealed that migraine was substantially less polygenic (2.8K disorder-influencing variants) compared to mental disorders (8.1K-12.3K disorder-influencing variants). Bivariate analysis estimated that 0.8K (0.3K), 2.1K (SD = 0.1K) and 2.3K (SD = 0.3K) variants were shared between bipolar disorder, depression and schizophrenia, respectively. There was also extensive overlap with intelligence (1.8K, SD = 0.3K) and educational attainment (2.1K, SD = 0.3K) but not height (1K, SD = 0.1K). We next identified 14 loci jointly associated with migraine and depression and 36 loci jointly associated with migraine and schizophrenia, with evidence of consistent genetic effects in independent samples. No loci were associated with migraine and bipolar disorder. Functional annotation mapped 37 and 298 genes to migraine and each of depression and schizophrenia, respectively, including several novel putative migraine genes such as L3MBTL2, CACNB2, SLC9B1. Gene-set analysis identified several putative gene-sets enriched with mapped genes including transmembrane transport in migraine and schizophrenia. Most migraine-influencing variants were predicted to influence depression and schizophrenia, although a minority of mental disorder-influencing variants were shared with migraine due to the difference in polygenicity. Similar overlap with other brain-related phenotypes suggests this represents a pool of 'pleiotropic' variants which influence vulnerability to diverse brain-related disorders and traits. We also identified specific loci shared between migraine and each of depression and schizophrenia, implicating shared molecular mechanisms and highlighting candidate migraine genes for experimental validation.
Learn More >Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) has become a common treatment modality for chronic pain of various etiologies. Over the past two decades, significant technological evolution has occurred in the SCS space, and this includes high-frequency (10 kHz) stimulation. Level I evidence exists reporting superiority of 10 kHz SCS over traditional SCS, however, conflicting reports have been published. The primary objective was to report site-collected real-world patient reported percentage improvement in pain scale (PR-PIPS) with traditional SCS and 10 kHz SCS from a single, academic medical center.
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