Prazosin as an Adjuvant to Increase Effectiveness of Duloxetine in a Rat Model of Oxaliplatin-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy.

Objectives: Duloxetine, the only American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) treatment recommended for chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) in cancer survivors, is not effective for 40% of survivors. This study examined the ability of a duloxetine-prazosin combination to prevent the development of allodynia and hyperalgesia in a rat model of oxaliplatin-induced peripheral neuropathy (OPIN).

Methods: Female (n = 24) and male (n = 41) rats were started on duloxetine (15 mg), prazosin (2 mg), or a duloxetine-prazosin combination one week prior to administration of the chemotherapy drug, oxaliplatin, and continued the duloxetine-prazosin combination for 32 days.

Effectiveness of Duloxetine on Oxaliplatin-induced Allodynia and Hyperalgesia in Rats.

Development of painful oxaliplatin-induced peripheral neuropathy (OIPN) is a major problem in people who receive oxaliplatin as part of cancer treatment. The pain experienced by those with OIPN can be seriously debilitating and lead to discontinuation of an otherwise successful treatment. Duloxetine is currently the only recommended treatment for established painful OIPN recommended by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, but its preventative ability is still not clear.

Pain Rehabilitation's Effect on People in Chronic Pain: A Prospective Cohort Study.

Multidisciplinary long-term pain rehabilitation programs with a team of healthcare professionals are an integrated approach to treat patients with chronic non-malignant pain. In this longitudinal prospective cohort study, we investigated the long-term effects of multidisciplinary pain rehabilitation on the self-reported causes of pain, pain self-management strategies, sleep, pain severity, and pain's interference with life, pre- and post-treatment. Eighty-one patients, aged 20-69 years, with chronic pain responded.

Pain, Sleep, and Health-Related Quality of Life after Multidisciplinary Intervention for Chronic Pain.

Multidisciplinary pain-management programs have the potential to decrease pain intensity, improve health-related quality of life (HRQOL), and increase sleep quality. In this longitudinal prospective cohort study, the aim was to investigate the long-term effects of multidisciplinary pain rehabilitation interventions in Iceland. More precisely, we (a) explored and described how individuals with chronic pain evaluated their pain severity, sleep, and HRQOL at pre-treatment and at one-year follow-up and (b) examined what predicted the participants' one-year follow-up HRQOL.

Breaking the vicious circle: Experiences of people in chronic pain on the pain rehabilitation journey.

Aim: To explore the lived experience of individuals' in chronic pain of participating in a pain rehabilitation programme in Iceland.

Design: Phenomenological research.

Method: The Vancouver School of Doing Phenomenology.

Pain condition and sex differences in the descending noradrenergic system following lateral hypothalamic stimulation.

The lateral hypothalamus (LH) is known to modulate nociception via the descending noradrenergic system in acute nociception, but less is known about its role in neuropathic pain states. In naïve females, LH stimulation produces opposing effects of α-adrenoceptors, with α-adrenoceptors mediating antinociception, while pronociceptive α-adrenoceptors attenuate the effect. Whether this opposing response is seen in neuropathic conditions or in naïve males is unknown.

Potential mediators of improvement in painful chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy via a web-based cognitive behavioural intervention.

Purpose: Preliminary evidence suggests that a self-guided cognitive and behaviourally-based pain management intervention (PROSPECT) is effective for chronic painful chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), but its mechanism of action is unknown. The purpose of this secondary analysis was to explore if changes in anxiety, depression, sleep-related impairment, or fatigue mediated improvements in worst pain following PROSPECT in individuals with chronic painful CIPN.

Methods: Sixty participants were randomized to receive self-guided cognitive behavioural pain management (access for eight weeks) or treatment as usual.

A Systematic Review: Mindfulness Intervention for Cancer-Related Pain.

Moderate-to-severe pain is a common problem experienced by patients with cancer. Although analgesic drugs are effective, adverse side effects are common and some analgesic drugs are addictive. Nonpharmacological treatment may be a way to treat cancer pain without causing negative side effects.

Global Transcriptomic Profile of Dorsal Root Ganglion and Physiological Correlates of Cisplatin-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy.

Background: Multiple cell signaling pathways are implicated in the development, progression, and persistence of cisplatin-induced peripheral neuropathy. Although advances have been made in terms of understanding specific neurotoxic mechanisms, there are few predictive factors identified that can help inform the clinician approach to symptom prevention or management.

Objective: We investigate the differential sensitivity to cisplatin-induced peripheral neuropathy and examine the contribution of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) transcriptional profiles across two inbred strains of mice.

Anatomical evidence for lateral hypothalamic innervation of the pontine A7 catecholamine cell group in rat.

Substantial behavioral evidence exists to support the idea that the lateral hypothalamus (LH) makes axonal connection with spinally-projecting noradrenergic neurons of the A7 catecholamine cell group in the pons. Through this putative projection, the LH modulates nociception via α and α-adrenoceptors in the dorsal horn. We used double-label immunocytochemistry to demonstrate that axons from the LH labeled with the anterograde tracer biotinylated dextran amine (BDA) appose tyrosine hydroxylase-immunoreactive (TH-ir) neuron profiles in the A7 area.

Self-Guided Online Cognitive Behavioral Strategies for Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy: A Multicenter, Pilot, Randomized, Wait-List Controlled Trial.

Unlabelled: The purpose of this pilot, parallel, randomized controlled trial was to examine the efficacy of a self-guided online cognitive and behaviorally-based pain management intervention (Proactive Self-Management Program for Effects of Cancer Treatment [PROSPECT]) to reduce "worst" pain for individuals with chronic painful chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN). Secondary outcomes included "average" pain, nonpainful CIPN symptom severity, impression of change, and pain interference. Sixty patients with chronic painful CIPN were recruited from 5 outpatient academic and community cancer centers.

Symptom clusters in patients with cancer in the hospice/palliative care setting.

Purpose: We determined commonly experienced symptoms reported by adult patients with cancer admitted to urban, ethnically diverse hospice settings and identified symptom clusters.

Methods: We used hierarchical cluster analysis of 150 patients (41 % male, 20-92 years [M = 59, SD = 13.3], 51 % African American, 37 % Caucasian, 12 % other).

Lateral Hypothalamic Stimulation Reduces Hyperalgesia Through Spinally Descending Orexin-A Neurons in Neuropathic Pain.

No evidence to date shows that lateral hypothalamic (LH) stimulation produces orexin-A-mediated antinociception in the spinal cord dorsal horn (SCDH) in a model of neuropathic pain. We conducted experiments to examine the effect of orexin-A-mediated LH stimulation in female rats with chronic constriction injury (CCI) on thermal hyperalgesia. Rats receiving carbachol into the LH demonstrated antinociception on both the left CCI and right nonligated paws (p < .

A Systematic Review of the Symptom Distress Scale in Advanced Cancer Studies.

Background: The 13-item Symptom Distress Scale (SDS) is a widely used symptom measurement tool, yet a systematic review summarizing the symptom knowledge generated from its use in patients with advanced cancer is nonexistent.

Objectives: This was a systematic review of the research literature in which investigators utilized the SDS as the measure of symptoms in patients with advanced cancer.

Methods: We searched PubMed, CINAHL, EMBASE, and Web of Science for primary research studies published between 1978 and 2013 that utilized the SDS as the measurement tool in patients with advanced cancer.

Characterizing activity and muscle atrophy changes in rats with neuropathic pain: a pilot study.

Unlabelled: The study of neuropathic pain has focused on changes within the nervous system, but little research has described systemic changes that may accompany neuropathic pain.

Objective: As part of a larger project characterizing the metabolic, activity, and musculoskeletal changes associated with neuropathic pain, the objective of the current study was to characterize changes in spontaneous activity and skeletal muscle mass using an established animal model of neuropathic pain, the chronic constriction injury (CCI) model.

Method: Male Sprague-Dawley rats were used in this pre- and posttest quasi-experimental study.

The McGill Pain Questionnaire as a multidimensional measure in people with cancer: an integrative review.

First published in 1975, the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) is an often-cited pain measure, but there have been no systematic reviews of the MPQ in cancer populations. Our objective was to evaluate the MPQ as a multidimensional measure of pain in people with cancer. A systematic search of research that used the MPQ in adults with cancer and published in English from 1975 to 2009 was conducted.

Differences in pain location, intensity, and quality by pain pattern in outpatients with cancer.

Background: Pain pattern represents how the individual's pain changes temporally with activities or other factors, but researchers have studied less the pattern of pain than its location, intensity, and quality parameters.

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore differences in pain location, intensity, and quality by pattern groups in outpatients with cancer.

Method: We conducted a comparative, secondary data analysis of data collected from 1994 to 2007.

Putting the bio in biobehavioral: animal models.

Animal models are useful in research that examines physiological mechanisms and, as such, are invaluable in developing therapies to alleviate illness and promote health. Ethical considerations are essential for proper animal use and include replacement by nonanimal models where possible, reduction in the numbers of animals used, and refinement of experimental protocols to reduce animal suffering. Choosing the optimum model depends on the long- and short-term goals of the project, and the choice of a model goes hand in hand with appropriate study design.

Repressive coping style: relationships with depression, pain, and pain coping strategies in lung cancer outpatients.

Researchers have shown that coping style is related to pain and adjustment in people with chronic illness. This study was the first to examine how coping style related to pain, pain coping strategies, and depression in lung cancer outpatients. We conducted a comparative, secondary data analysis of 107 lung cancer patients (73% male, mean age 61.

An NK1 receptor antagonist microinjected into the periaqueductal gray blocks lateral hypothalamic-induced antinociception in rats.

Substantial data are accumulating that implicate the lateral hypothalamus (LH) as part of the descending pain modulatory system. The LH modifies nociception in the spinal cord dorsal horn partly through connections with the periaqueductal gray (PAG), an area known to play a central role in brainstem modulation of nociception. Early work demonstrated a putative substance P connection between the LH and the PAG, but the connection is not fully defined.

Lateral hypothalamic-induced alpha-adrenoceptor modulation occurs in a model of inflammatory pain in rats.

Previous work from our lab showed that stimulation of the lateral hypothalamus (LH) produces analgesia (antinociception) in a model of thermal nociceptive pain. This antinociceptive effect is mediated by alpha2-adrenoceptors in the spinal cord dorsal horn. However, a concomitant, opposing hyperalgesic (pro-nociceptive) response also occurs, which is mediated by alpha1-adrenoceptors in the dorsal horn.

Lateral hypothalamic-induced antinociception may be mediated by a substance P connection with the rostral ventromedial medulla.

Stimulation of the lateral hypothalamus (LH) produces antinociception modified by intrathecal serotonergic receptor antagonists. Spinally-projecting serotonergic neurons in the LH have not been identified, suggesting that the LH innervates brainstem serotonergic neurons in the rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM), known to modify nociception in the spinal cord dorsal horn. To determine whether substance P (SP) plays a role in LH-induced antinociception mediated by the RVM, we conducted an anatomical experiment using retrograde tract tracing combined with double label immunocytochemistry and found that neuron profiles immunoreactive for SP in the LH project to the RVM.