Rejected

Addiction poses a complex challenge in spite of all the progress made toward understanding and treating it. A multidisciplinary approach is needed and this paper attempts to integrate relevant neurobiological, behavioral, and subjective data under a common denominator described as a latent type of depression. It is called latent because it remains a silent syndrome due to two main reasons. The first one relates to the natural use of defenses against a predominant effect of chronic subjective pain, which arises from an ambivalent type of separation distress that compromises opioid regulation (PANIC system). Furthermore, it provokes a neurochemical cascade that impacts several neuromodulatory systems. The second reason is that such chronic subjective pain usually exhausts the natural defensive system, frequently leading the person to look for other resources such as the neurochemical manipulation of psychic pain. Thus, both the use of defenses and of psychotoxic drugs make the underlying depression hard to assess, even for the very person suffering from it. The causes, course and treatment of this type of affective configuration are discussed in this paper as an attempt to explain some of the difficulties so far encountered and to contribute to potential alternative lines of treatment.

Osteoarthritis is one of the leading causes of a chronic pain in elderly people. Old and very old age in itself is a risk factor of a comorbidity, which often limits the therapy specified in clinical recommendations. First of all, it concerns NSAID. In such situations, priority is given to chondroitin sulfate (CS) and glucosamine sulfate (GS) having the anti-inflammatory properties comparable with effects of NSAID. CS and GS also promote the delay in progression of degenerative processes and restoration of the structure of cartilaginous tissue. The drugs of CS and GS groups are Chondroguard and Sustaguard Artro having the considerable evidence-based efficacy and safety and also a polymodality of effects in patients with a combination of osteoarthritis and socially important diseases (atherosclerosis, diabetes mellitus type 2, oncological diseases) and also geriatric syndromes (sarcopenia) and aging in general.

The evaluation of the disease severity in hip osteoarthritis (OA) patients being currently based on subjective instruments. It would be of interest to develop more objective instruments, for example based on gait analysis. The aims of this study were to explore if pelvis-thorax coordination parameters could be valuable instrument outcomes to achieve this evaluation by assessing their reliability, discriminant capacity and responsiveness. Three groups of subjects; healthy, hip OA patients with severe disease (defined as indication to surgery), hip OA patients with less severe disease (no indication to surgery) were included. Hip OA patients with severe disease were evaluated before and 6 months after surgery. Subjects had to perform a gait analysis at comfortable speed, and pelvis-thorax coordination was evaluated. The correlations with clinical and structural parameters, as well as reliability, discriminant capacities and responsiveness, were assessed. The pelvis-thorax coordination in the coronal plane during walking was correlated to clinical and to structural severity in hip OA patients ( = 0.13). The coronal plane coordination allowed to discriminate healthy subjects from all hip OA patients (sensibility = 0.86; specificity = 0.59). Moreover, when comparing OA patients only, coronal plane coordination allows to discriminate patients with indication of surgery from those with no indication of surgery (sensibility = 0.72; specificity = 0.72). Moreover, the pelvis-thorax coordination demonstrated an excellent reliability and a good responsiveness. Changes in the pelvis-thorax coordination might refer to different mechanisms, from analgesia to motor control plasticity, and might be a possible explanation for the weak correlation between structure and symptoms in hip OA patients. Moreover, such parameter might be used as an objective outcome in hip OA clinical trials. www.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT02042586 and NCT01907503.

Patients with inflammatory bowel disease-peripheral arthritis (IBD-PA) often accompany by sleep problems, but few studies have used polysomnography to investigate the objective sleep characteristics of IBD-PA. Patients in IBD-PA group, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) group, healthy control (HC) group were examined by polysomnography (PSG) and the sleep characteristics were compared. PSG and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Scale (PSQI) indices were compared between active and remission IBD-PA patients. The correlation between disease activity and sleep quality in IBD-PA patients was analyzed. The influencing factors of sleep efficiency of IBD-PA patients were analyzed. The total sleep time (TST), rapid-eye-movement sleep (REM) time, slow wave sleep (S3 + S4) and sleep efficiency (SE) in the IBD-PA group were significantly less than those in the HC group and IBD group ( < 0.05), while the number and time of wake after sleep onset (WASO) and sleep latency (SL) were significantly longer than those in the HC group and IBD group ( < 0.05). To IBD-PA patients, the disease activity was negatively related to sleep quality. There was a significant difference in SE, the number of WASO, S1, S3+S4 of PSG, as well as the PSQI total score between active and remission patients. Abdominal pain, joint pain, depression, and C-reactive protein were the influencing factors of sleep efficiency. The sleep quality of patients with IBD was poor than the control group, and that of patients with IBD-PA was even worse. Therefore, sleep management should be included in IBD management.

Transverse sinus stenosis is a common brain MRI finding in chronic migraine (CM) and chronic tension-type headache (CTTH) patients in clinical practice; however, its clinical and diagnostic role is unclear. The aim of the study is to determine the frequency of transverse sinus stenosis in these headache patients resistant to preventive treatments and to verify whether this is a useful finding for identifying patients with intracranial hypertension. This is an observational study. Patients with refractory CM and CTTH underwent a 3T-magnetic resonance venography (MRV) before cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) opening pressure measurement. Transverse sinus stenosis was determined using the combined conduit score. Patients with opening pressure >200 repeated MRV study 1 month after CSF withdrawal to evaluate changes in neuroimaging findings. We analyzed MRV studies of 40 patients (32 F, 8 M; mean age, 49.4 ± 10.8; mean body mass index, 26.7 ± 6.4; 39 CM and 1 CTTH with concomitant episodic migraine). Nineteen cases (47.5%) had evidence of transverse sinus stenosis: bilateral in seven patients (17.5%) and unilateral in 12 cases (30%). No statistically significant differences in transverse sinus stenosis distribution were found between patients with opening pressure <200 mmHO and those with opening pressure >200 mmHO. On Spearman bivariate test, there was no correlation between opening pressure and combined conduit score. No changes in neuroimaging findings were found 1 month after CSF withdrawal. Transverse sinus stenosis is a frequent radiological finding (47.5%) in CM and CTTH patients refractory to preventive treatments. However, this finding is not suggestive of intracranial hypertension. Whether transverse sinus stenosis may be a possible risk factor for chronic headache or a comorbidity needs to be evaluated in larger epidemiological studies.

This study examined postoperative heart failure (HF) and respiratory failure (RF) complications and related healthcare utilization for one year following cardiac surgery.

: Postoperative pain management (POPM) appeared to be weak in Rwanda. : The aim of this study was to compare POPM measures in a teaching hospital between 2013 and 2017. : A two-phase observational study in 2013 and 2017. was conducted. Participants were recruited prior to major surgery and followed for two postoperative days. A numerical rating scale (0-10) was administered to all participants in both years, and the International Pain Outcomes questionnaire was administered in 2017. Recruitment, consent, and data collection were performed in participants' preferred language. : One hundred adult participants undergoing major general, gynecologic, orthopedic, or urologic surgery were recruited in 2013 and 83 were recruited in 2017. Fourteen percent of participants in 2013 and 46% in 2017 scored their worst pain as severe (>6; < 0.001). This was despite improved preoperative recognition of patients at high risk for severe postoperative pain (those with chronic pain or preoperative pain); 27% and 0% of these patients were not documented in 2013 and 2017, respectively ( = 0.006). Other measures of improved planning included "any preoperative discussion of POPM" ( < 0.001) and "discussion of POPM options" ( = 0.002). Preemptive analgesia use increased (3% of participants in 2013 and 54% in 2017; < 0.001). Incidence of participants having no postoperative analgesic at all decreased from 25% in 2013 to 5% in 2017 ( < 0.001). : Though severe postoperative pain incidence did not improve from 2013 to 2017, POPM improved by a number of measures. These changes may be attributed to pain research conducted there having raised awareness.

Rising rates of caesarean section (CS) is an issue of particular concern. Recently, there has been research supporting Vaginal Births After Caesarean (VBAC), which is controversial. In Greece, over half of births in the country are by CS, placing Greece among countries with the highest CS rates. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and the factors associated with VBACs and to compare the maternal/neonatal outcomes with a 'non-caesarean' control group.

The complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is an agonizing and disabling condition that can affect one or more extremities. Contrary to expectation, sporadic case reports about lower limb CRPS are present in literature. The usual sequence of events with respect to CRPS has always been prior trauma or inciting event, leading to manifestations. We hereby present a case of prolonged and undue immobilization without physical therapy, leading to CRPS in a susceptible phenotype. However, the unique feature of this case was severity of osteoporosis leading to bimalleolar fracture. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no case report of CRPS, leading to fracture.

Day surgery for inguinal hernia Hernia surgery has experienced a very positive development in the past 30 years: better meshes, better understanding of the anatomy and the nerves, improved skills-training, minimally invasive and more precise operations (e. g. also with the robot), just to name a few. This directly results in fewer recurrences, less chronic pain and better quality of life. In the current article, the growing importance day-care surgery of inguinal hernias is discussed – not least because of the statutory AVOS regulation that came into effect in Switzerland on 01.01.2019. This article reviews the indication and the most important surgical procedures for day-care groin hernia repair. There is no single standard procedure (no one-fits-all), since according to today's knowledge every patient is an individual case and must have access to an individually tailored procedure. For day-surgery inguinal hernia repair with mesh, both conventional and minimally invasive procedures are suitable. When planning outpatient hernia repairs, it must also be taken into account that acute postoperative pain is of negative prognostic significance, which is why optimal postoperative pain therapy should be well coordinated with the general practitioner in the first days after the operation. With all the positive aspects of AVOS, it is still not clear how the further training of the young generation will take place under the current conditions, as it is no longer provided for in the structural and reimbursement regulations. There is an urgent need for improvement here.