Rejected

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.

: Accumulating evidence has identified a number of advantages for methadone over other opioids for the treatment of chronic pain including: agonist action at both μ and δ opioid receptors, -methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) antagonist activity and the ability to inhibit the reuptake of monoamines. It was hypothesized that with these three mechanisms of action methadone might be a good option for the treatment of neuropathic pain. : This was a double-blind randomized controlled trial comparing methadone to controlled-release morphine. The primary objective was to determine whether methadone is clinically inferior versus noninferior to morphine as an analgesic. : We attempted recruitment at three academic pain centers over a 3-year period. In the end only 14 participants were able to be recruited; 5 withdrew and only 9 completed the trial. This study was underpowered. All participants showed a mean reduction in pain intensity according to the Numeric Rating Scale for Pain Intensity (morphine 5.86 to 4.38, methadone 6.11 to 4.5) and reported pain relief compared to pretreatment, but the sample size was too small for statistical analysis. : Reasons for challenges in recruitment included tight inclusion and exclusion criteria and high participant burden. In addition, there was significant heterogeneity of patients between the three sites, leading to differences in reasons for exclusion. This included seemingly disparate reasons at the different sites, including few participants who were methadone naïve vs. avoidance or fear of opioids. In the end, we were unable to answer the question of the study.

Articaine is a rapid-onset, short-duration, local anesthetic. The aim of this study was to study the effect of adding tramadol to articaine in an axillary block to prolong the analgesic effect.

Gout is a common disorder of uric acid metabolism that leads to the precipitation of monosodium urate crystals. It most commonly affects the first metatarsophalangeal joint but can also affect other joints such as knees, elbows, wrists, and ankles. Chronic gout can present as recurrent episodes of monoarticular or polyarticular inflammatory arthritis, tophaceous soft tissue deposits of monosodium urate crystals, uric acid renal calculi, and/or chronic nephropathy.

A 27-year-old male patient complained of dental pain on previously root-treated tooth #17. Intentional replantation (IR) was performed. However, the symptoms returned at 10 months of follow-up, and a sinus tract was detected on the buccal gingiva of tooth #17. The patient refused extraction of the tooth and tooth was scheduled for non-surgical retreatment. Root canal retreatment was initiated with the removal of the previous root filling material while leaving the retrograde filling in situ. After 1 month of intracanal medication, the tooth became asymptomatic with complete healing of the sinus tract and the root canal filling was completed. Clinical and radiographic examination at 1 year follow-up revealed endodontic success with complete resolution of periapical radiolucency. This case report shows that non-surgical retreatment could be a viable alternative for failed IR.