Pain News and Research

Latest Pain News and Research

Research roundup: Who do patients seek for primary care?; Treating kids with antipsychotics

n order to find out what kind of doctor patients were visiting for primary care service, researchers analyzed the frequency in which patients visited generalists and specialists in 1999 and 2007 by using a nationally representative sample of outpatient visits.

26 Aug 2012

Children with obesity face increased risk for gallstones

Children who are overweight or obese face an increased risk for gallstones, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology & Nutrition.

26 Aug 2012

MRC awards grant to design new drug for treatment of chronic pain

Scientists at the University of Liverpool and the Royal Liverpool University Hospital have been awarded -1.4 million to design a new drug for the treatment of chronic pain.

24 Aug 2012

Revision surgery improves upper limb amputation outcome

Revision surgery can significantly reduce pain and increases prosthesis use in veterans who undergo combat-related major upper-extremity amputation, US research demonstrates.

24 Aug 2012

Prescription drug monitoring systems alert abuse

Electronic prescription monitoring programs may significantly improve drug-abuse detection and could alert clinicians to “doctor shopping,” say researchers.

24 Aug 2012

Guidelines for parents to beat back-to-school bugs

School bells are beginning to sound again across the country, so it will only be a matter of time until every parent comes face-to-face with a child who wakes up with a cold, fever or upset stomach.

24 Aug 2012

AcelRx commences third ARX-01 Phase 3 study in post-operative pain

AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of innovative therapies for the treatment of acute and breakthrough pain, today announced dosing of the first patient in the third of three planned Phase 3 studies for ARX-01, the Sufentanil NanoTab PCA System, its novel sublingual patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) system.

24 Aug 2012

Inappropriate prescriptions for the elderly prevalent in primary care

One in five prescriptions in primary care for the elderly is inappropriate, say the authors of a systematic review.

23 Aug 2012

Adult surgery rescues overcorrected club foot deformity

Study findings support the use of supramalleolar osteotomy for patients with hindfoot valgus or subtalar joint deformity following an overcorrected clubfoot.

23 Aug 2012

Fizzy tablet is best method to receive fentanyl for cancer pain

Results of a mixed treatment comparison show that fentanyl in the form of an effervescent buccal tablet can better relieve the intensity of breakthrough cancer pain in the first 60 minutes after dosing compared with other fentanyl formulations.

23 Aug 2012

Study quantifies discrepancies between physicians and patients with rheumatoid arthritis

For people suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, pain is the crucial factor in their personal perception of the condition. The doctors treating them, however, assess the severity of the disease based on the swelling of the joints. This discrepancy often leads to conflict between patients and their physicians, as a study by Daniel Aletaha and Paul Studenic from the University Department of Internal Medicine III at the MedUni Vienna has now revealed in more detail for the first time.

23 Aug 2012

Statin's potency may cause muscle problems in patients with cardiovascular disease

A study from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, published August 22 online by PLoS ONE, reports that muscle problems reported by patients taking statins were related to the strength or potency of the given cholesterol-lowering drugs.

23 Aug 2012

Link between specific weather conditions and dengue fever outbreaks

Dengue fever, transmitted by the Aedes mosquito, affects hundreds of millions of people in around one hundred tropical countries and causes 25 000 deaths per year. In the absence of a vaccine, determining the factors that influence epidemics to predict them better is a real public health challenge. One scientific study, conducted in New Caledonia, demonstrates the essential role of the local climate in epidemic dynamics. IRD researchers and their New Caledonian colleagues analysed epidemiological and climatological data gathered in Noumea over forty years.

23 Aug 2012

Life-quality concerns for multiple myeloma survivors

Care of patients with multiple myeloma should not end with the achievement of long-term survival, suggests research indicating many experience poor health-related quality of life in the decade after diagnosis.

22 Aug 2012

Pain intensity not only predictor for hysterectomy

Presurgical and surgical factors, and postsurgical pain intensity, should be taken into account when providing rescue analgesia to women after hysterectomy, researchers say.

22 Aug 2012

FDA warns consumers about potential health risks of two natural dietary supplements

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today issued a new warning to consumers about the potential health risks of two products marketed as natural dietary supplements for treating arthritis, muscle pain, osteoporosis, bone cancer, and other conditions.

22 Aug 2012

Clinical trial to test whether fecal transplantation is effective in treating relapsing C. difficile

For patients with Clostridium difficile (C. difficile), a persistent and potentially deadly bacterial illness, severe diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting are an everyday event. This particularly virulent infection is prone to recurrence, even after multiple courses of expensive antibiotics, and treatment options are limited for patients who continually relapse or develop antibiotic resistance.

22 Aug 2012

CIRT to determine whether methotrexate can reduce heart attacks, strokes and CVD deaths

An international multi-site trial has launched to determine whether a common anti-inflammatory drug can reduce heart attacks, strokes, and deaths due to cardiovascular disease in people at high risk for them. This study is being supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a part of the National Institutes of Health.

22 Aug 2012

GM-CSF depletion suppresses pain in people with arthritis-related conditions

The research relates to a family of molecules firstly discovered in Melbourne that applied to blood cell development. One of these, granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor or GM-CSF, acts as a messenger between cells acting at a site of inflammation.

22 Aug 2012

Highly sensitive troponin assay shortens heart attack diagnosis

An algorithm that incorporates high-sensitivity cardiac troponin could allow accurate rule-in and rule-out of patients with acute chest pain within 1 hour of presentation, a study shows.

21 Aug 2012