Rejected

Chronic pain is a debilitating problem that disproportionately affects military veterans. We completed a qualitative study that identified 20 research priorities of Canadian veterans living with chronic noncancer pain. The aim of this study was to establish the generalizability of these priorities.

Neurological and psychiatric patients have increased dramatically in number in the past few decades. However, effective treatments for these diseases and disorders are limited due to heterogeneous and unclear pathogenic mechanisms. Therefore, further exploration of the biological aspects of the disease, and the identification of novel targets to develop alternative treatment strategies, is urgently required. Systems-level investigations have indicated the potential involvement of the brain-gut axis and intestinal microbiota in the pathogenesis and regulation of neurological and psychiatric disorders. While intestinal microbiota is crucial for maintaining host physiology, some important sensory and regulatory cells in the host should not be overlooked. Intestinal epithelial enteroendocrine cells (EECs) residing in the epithelium throughout intestine are the key regulators orchestrating the communication along the brain-gut-microbiota axis. On one hand, EECs sense changes in luminal microorganisms via microbial metabolites; on the other hand, they communicate with host body systems via neuroendocrine molecules. Therefore, EECs are believed to play important roles in neurological and psychiatric disorders. This review highlights the involvement of EECs and subtype cells, via secretion of endocrine molecules, in the development and regulation of neurological and psychiatric disorders, including Parkinson's disease (PD), schizophrenia, visceral pain, neuropathic pain, and depression. Moreover, the current paper summarizes the potential mechanism of EECs in contributing to disease pathogenesis. Examination of these mechanisms may inspire and lead to the development of new aspects of treatment strategies for neurological and psychiatric disorders in the future.

In recent years, unilateral biportal endoscopic lumbar interbody fusion (ULIF) has been more and more favored by spinal surgeons because of its advantages of low trauma, rapid recovery, high fusion rate and fewer complications.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis, affecting an estimated 302-million people worldwide, and it's a leading cause of disability among older adults. Current treatments for OA are largely unsatisfactory. Ozone is an inexpensive, accessible, and easily applicable treatment for OA.

In November 2018, the UK's Home Office established a legal route for eligible patients to be prescribed cannabis-based products for medicinal use in humans (CBPMs) as unlicensed medicines. These include liquid cannabis extracts for oral administration ("oils") and dried flowers for inhalation ("flos"). Smoking of CBPMs is expressly prohibited. To date, THC-predominant cannabis flowers remain the most prescribed CBPMs in project Twenty21 (T21), the first multi-center, prospective, observational UK cannabis patient registry. This observational, prospective data review analyzes patient-reported outcome measures (PROMS) collected by T21 associated with the inhalation of KHIRON 20/1, the most prescribed CBPM in the project. PROMS collected at baseline and at subsequent 3-month follow-up included health-related quality of life (HRQoL), general mood, and sleep. Condition-specific measures of illness severity were performed with the Brief Pain Inventory Short Form (BPI-SF) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-Item Scale (GAD-7). Participants (N = 344) were mostly males (77.6%, average age = 38.3) diagnosed mainly with chronic pain (50.9%) and anxiety-related disorders (25.3%). Inhalation of KHIRON 20/1 was associated with a marked increase in self-reported HRQoL, general mood, and sleep (N = 344; < 0.001). Condition-specific assessments showed significant improvements in pain severity (T = 6.67; < 0.001) and interference (T = 7.19; < 0.001) in patients using KHIRON 20/1 for chronic pain (N = 174). Similar results were found for patients diagnosed with anxiety-related disorders (N = 107; T = 12.9; < 0.001). Our results indicate that controlled inhalation of pharmaceutical grade, THC-predominant cannabis flos is associated with a significant improvement in patient-reported pain scores, mood, anxiety, sleep disturbances and overall HRQoL in a treatment-resistant clinical population.

Scapular winging is a rare condition of the shoulder girdle which presents challenging treatment decisions for clinicians. To inform clinical practice, clinicians need guidance on what the best treatment decision is for their patients and such recommendations should be based on the total evidence available. Therefore, the purpose of this review was to systematically review the evidence regarding non-surgical management and tendon transfer surgery of patients with neurologic scapular winging due to serratus anterior (SA) or trapezius (TP) palsy.

Chronic pain affects individuals' quality of life, physical functionality, and psychological well-being. In the case of multifactorial diseases with an increasing tendency to become chronic, individual therapies often can't alleviate symptoms. The integration of recognized naturopathic methods into a variety of therapies could increase their success.

Understanding of the economic burden of recurrent vestibular causes of vertigo and areas contributing to the cost is needed.

Inflammatory disorders of the central nervous system (CNS) vessels, also called CNS vasculitides, can cause substantial disability or even be fatal. Inflammation of the CNS vessels can be caused by primary angiitis of the CNS (PACNS), inflammatory cerebral amyloid angiopathy, or systemic inflammatory disorders. Clinical symptoms of these disorders are often non-specific, such as encephalopathy, cognitive and affective abnormalities, headache and focal neurological symptoms. Diagnostic workup includes a thorough neuropsychiatric examination, blood and cerebrospinal fluid analysis and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain and its vessels. Biopsy of the brain remains the gold standard diagnostic test. Timely diagnosis and treatment initiation is of high importance, as it might prevent severe complications, such as ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke. In this review, we describe the specific characteristics of primary and secondary non-infectious CNS vasculitides which help to establish the diagnosis, discuss the peculiarities of the diagnostic workup and present current treatment recommendations.

Quadratus lumborum block (QLB) has proven to be an effective analgesic technique in various abdominal surgeries. Magnesium sulfate as an adjuvant in different nerve blocks has been reported. The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of magnesium sulfate as an adjuvant to ropivacaine in an ultrasound-guided QLB for postoperative analgesia in laparoscopic gynecologic surgery.