Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Reduces Pressure Pain Sensitivity in Patients With Noncancer Chronic Pain.

Objectives: Noncancer chronic pain is a clinical challenge because pharmacological treatment often fails to relieve pain. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a treatment that could have the potential for pain relief and improvement in quality of life. However, there is a lack of clinical trials evaluating the effects of tDCS on the pain system.

Opium tincture has anti-propulsive effects in patients with chronic diarrhea: a randomized, placebo-controlled, and cross-over trial.

Objective: Chronic diarrhea affects approximately 5% of the population. Opioids inhibit gastrointestinal motility, and opium tincture has shown anti-propulsive effects in healthy, but no controlled studies of its clinical efficacy exist. We aimed to investigate the anti-propulsive and central nervous system (CNS) effects of opium tincture in patients with chronic diarrhea.

Sensitivity of quantitative sensory models to morphine analgesia in humans.

Introduction: Opioid analgesia can be explored with quantitative sensory testing, but most investigations have used models of phasic pain, and such brief stimuli may be limited in the ability to faithfully simulate natural and clinical painful experiences. Therefore, identification of appropriate experimental pain models is critical for our understanding of opioid effects with the potential to improve treatment.

Objectives: The aim was to explore and compare various pain models to morphine analgesia in healthy volunteers.

Randomized clinical trial: efficacy and safety of PPC-5650 on experimental esophageal pain and hyperalgesia in healthy volunteers.

Objective: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is a common condition associated with symptoms as heart burn, regurgitation, chest pain, and gastrointestinal discomfort. PPC-5650 is a new pharmacological agent that can modulate acid-sensing ion channel activity, potentially leading to reduction in the pain signal. In healthy volunteers the esophagus was sensitized with acid to mimic GERD with the aims: 1) to assess the efficacy of a single bolus of PPC-5650 locally applied to the esophagus using multimodal pain stimulations, and 2) to assess the safety profile of PPC-5650.

Pharmacological challenges in chronic pancreatitis.

Drug absorption in patients with chronic pancreatitis might be affected by the pathophysiology of the disease. The exocrine pancreatic insufficiency is associated with changes in gastrointestinal intraluminal pH, motility disorder, bacterial overgrowth and changed pancreatic gland secretion. Together these factors can result in malabsorption and may also affect the efficacy of pharmacological intervention.