Health-related quality of life in systemic sclerosis as measured by the Short Form 36: relationship with clinical and biologic markers.

Objective: To evaluate health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) using the Short Form 36 (SF-36) and to correlate SF-36 scores with clinical and biologic markers.

Methods: The SF-36 was administered to 24 controls and 24 SSc patients. SSc patients also were evaluated for subset (limited SSc [lSSc] and diffuse SSc [dSSc]), age, disease duration, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) levels, autoantibodies, and skin and internal organ involvement.

Dimensions of psychological dysfunction in patients with fibromyalgia: development of an Italian questionnaire.

Our objective was to observe whether dysfunctional psychological dimensions of pain could be detected in fibromyalgia patients through the development of a new questionnaire. An original questionnaire composed of 51 items was given to 250 patients (185 females and 65 males, mean age 55+/-12.8 years) suffering from chronic fibromyalgia according to the criteria of the Multicenter Criteria Committee of the American College of Rheumatology.

The use of pupillometry in joint and connective tissue diseases.

The central and peripheral nervous systems are variably affected in the rheumatic diseases. Automated standardized infrared pupillometry allows the safe, noninvasive assessment of the pupillary innervation. Pupillometry has already been used in studying the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in various rheumatic diseases.

Lateralisation of pain in cluster headache.

In 27 patients with cluster headache a careful sensory examination of the entire body was performed. The exam included: the measurement of sensory thresholds with mechanical and electrical stimuli, the assessment of cutaneous and deep hyperalgesia and the ischaemic test of the upper limbs with limbs at rest. In most patients a lateralisation of the findings was observed: cutaneous and deep hyperalgesia were prevalent in the side of cluster headache attacks.

Pain in early cancer of the lungs.

164 patients with early cancer of the lungs, i.e., without extrathoracic spread or distant metastasis, were examined.

The effects of non-painful transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation on cutaneous pain threshold and muscular reflexes in normal men and in subjects with chronic pain.

In healthy subjects and in subjects with chronic myofascial pain of one lower limb, the following was measured in both lower limbs: (i) sequential Hoffman (H) reflex, (ii) sequential Achilles tendon (T) reflex, (iii) cutaneous pain threshold determined with electrical stimuli, before, during and after transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS). In healthy subjects no significant differences were observed between the pain thresholds of the two limbs. During and after TENS, changes of the reflexes were related to the pain thresholds.

Myocardial infarction without pain. A study of the sensory function of the upper limbs.

The sensory function of the upper limbs was examined in 18 subjects who had a myocardial infarction without a well-defined episode of chest pain. The cutaneous pain threshold was significantly higher than in normals. The ischaemia of the upper limbs induced patterns of sensations different from the normals, with onset of pain and of autonomic and coenaesthesic disturbances.

Cutaneous pain threshold changes after sympathetic block in reflex dystrophies.

In a group of 30 subjects suffering from sympathetic reflex dystrophies of the limbs, the sympathetic ganglia of the affected side were blocked with a local anesthetic. Using an original method, we measured the cutaneous pain threshold before the block and at prefixed intervals after the block during a period of 2 days. In all subjects the cutaneous pain threshold showed damped oscillations both in the limb ipsilateral to the block and in the contralateral one.