Intima-media thickness at the near or far wall of the common carotid artery in cardiovascular risk assessment.

Aims: Current guidelines recommend measuring carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) at the far wall of the common carotid artery (CCA). We aimed to precisely quantify associations of near vs. far wall CCA-IMT with the risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD, defined as coronary heart disease or stroke) and their added predictive values.

The association of self-reported symptoms of central sensitization and sleep disturbances in neuropathic pain.

Introduction: Patients with neuropathic pain (NP) report a higher impairment of quality of life and sleep than patients with chronic pain without neuropathic characteristics. These include somatosensory peculiarities like allodynia, a surrogate marker for central sensitization.

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the relation between symptoms of central sensitization and sleep disturbances in patients with NP.

Psoriasis and addiction: assessing mental health based on a cross-sectional study in Germany.

Psoriasis is a chronic skin disease with a high mental burden. Well-known comorbidities include depression, anxiety, as well as alcohol and tobacco addiction, however, there is barely any evidence on other addictions. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of the six most common addictions among psoriasis patients in Germany and to determine associated clinical factors.

Association of sensory phenotype with quality of life, functionality, and emotional well-being in patients suffering from neuropathic pain.

Neuropathic pain highly affects quality of life, well-being, and function. It has recently been shown based on cluster analysis studies that most patients with neuropathic pain may be categorized into 1 of 3 sensory phenotypes: sensory loss, mechanical hyperalgesia, and thermal hyperalgesia. If these phenotypes reflect underlying pathophysiological mechanisms, they may be more relevant for patient management than underlying neurological diagnosis or pain intensity.

Cross-cultural adaptation of the painDETECT questionnaire into Brazilian Portuguese.

Background And Objectives: Neuropathic pain is common in the general population worldwide and Brazil. The painDETECT questionnaire is a notable instrument for screening on neuropathic pain. A Brazilian version of the painDETECT is necessary to broaden the possibilities of identification of neuropathic pain in the Brazilian population for the proper diagnosis and treatment.

Contralateral Sensory and Pain Perception Changes in Patients With Unilateral Neuropathy.

Objective: To test whether contralateral sensory abnormalities in the clinically unaffected area of patients with unilateral neuropathic pain are due to the neuropathy or pain mechanisms.

Methods: We analyzed the contralateral clinically unaffected side of patients with unilateral painful or painless neuropathy (peripheral nerve injury [PNI], postherpetic neuropathy [PHN], radiculopathy) by standardized quantitative sensory testing following a validated protocol. Primary outcome was the independent contribution of the following variables on the contralateral sensory function using generalized linear regression models: pain intensity, disease duration, etiology, body area, and sensory patterns in the most painful area.

Progressive Response to Repeat Application of Capsaicin 179 mg (8% w/w) Cutaneous Patch in Peripheral Neuropathic Pain: Comprehensive New Analysis and Clinical Implications.

Objective: To investigate the efficacy of repeated application of capsaicin 179 mg cutaneous patch in nonresponders to the first application.

Design: Post hoc, as-treated analysis of two prospective trials (STRIDE and PACE) with 52-week follow-up.

Blinding: Open-label.

Diagnosis, Treatment and Follow-up in Extracranial Carotid Stenosis.

Background: Around 15% of cerebral ischemias are caused by lesions of the extracranial carotid artery. The goal of this guideline is to provide evidence- and consensus-based recommendations for the management of patients with extracranial carotid stenoses throughout Germany and Austria.

Methods: A systematic literature search (1990-2019) and methodical assessment of existing guidelines and systematic reviews; consensus-based answers to 37 key questions with evidence-based recommendations.

Pregabalin for neuropathic pain in primary care settings: recommendations for dosing and titration.

Pregabalin is one of the first-line treatments approved for the management of neuropathic pain (NeP). While many patients benefit from treatment with pregabalin, they are often treated with suboptimal doses, possibly due to unfamiliarity around prescribing the drug and/or side effects that can occur with up-titration. This narrative review discusses key aspects of initiating, titrating, and managing patients prescribed pregabalin therapy, and addresses concerns around driving and the potential for abuse, as well as when to seek specialist opinion.

When to consider "mixed pain"? The right questions can make a difference!

The term "mixed pain" is increasingly applied for specific clinical scenarios, such as low back pain, cancer pain and postsurgical pain, in which there "is a complex overlap of the different known pain types (nociceptive, neuropathic, nociplastic) in any combination, acting simultaneously and/or concurrently to cause pain in the same body area." Whether mixed pain is the manifestation of neuropathic and nociceptive mechanisms operating simultaneously or concurrently, or the result of an entirely independent pathophysiological mechanism - distinct from nociceptive, nociplastic and neuropathic pain - is currently unknown. At present, the diagnosis of mixed pain is made based on clinical judgement following detailed history-taking and thorough physical examination, rather than by formal confirmation following explicit screening or diagnostic criteria; this lack of formalized screening or diagnostic tools for mixed pain is problematic for physicians in primary care, who encounter patients with probable mixed pain states in their daily practice.

No pain, still gain (of function): the relation between sensory profiles and the presence or absence of self-reported pain in a large multicenter cohort of patients with neuropathy.

The pathophysiology of pain in neuropathy is complex and may be linked to sensory phenotypes. Quantitative sensory testing, a standardized method to evaluate sensory profiles in response to defined stimuli, assesses functional integrity of small and large nerve fiber afferents and central somatosensory pathways. It has revealed detailed insights into mechanisms of neuropathy, yet it remains unclear if pain directly affects sensory profiles.

The Prospective Studies of Atherosclerosis (Proof-ATHERO) Consortium: Design and Rationale.

Atherosclerosis - the pathophysiological mechanism shared by most cardiovascular diseases - can be directly or indirectly assessed by a variety of clinical tests including measurement of carotid intima-media thickness, carotid plaque, -ankle-brachial index, pulse wave velocity, and coronary -artery calcium. The Prospective Studies of Atherosclerosis -(Proof-ATHERO) consortium (https://clinicalepi.i-med.

Pain thresholds and intensities of CRPS type I and neuropathic pain in respect to sex.

Background And Aims: Healthy women have generally been found to have increased experimental pain perception and chronic pain has a higher prevalence in female as compared to male patients. However, no study has investigated whether pain intensity and pain perception thresholds are distinct or similar between sexes within various chronic pain entities. We investigated whether average pain intensities and pain thresholds assessed using quantitative sensory testing (QST) differed between women and men suffering from three distinct chronic pain conditions: Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS type I), peripheral nerve injury (PNI) or polyneuropathy (PNP), as compared to paired healthy volunteers.

Stent augmentation of an anterior odontoid screw for type 2 odontoid fracture-dislocation in the elderly population: Report of two cases and literature review.

The fixation of type 2 odontoid fractures poses significant challenges in the elderly population due to coexistent osteoporosis and communition resulting in a high failure rate with conventional anterior screw fixation. Two elderly patients with unstable odontoid peg fractures and coexistent osteoporosis were treated with stentoplasty and anterior odontoid screw fixation. Additional anterior transarticular C1-2 screws were placed to address C1-2 instability.

The relationship between the reporting of euphoria events and early treatment responses to pregabalin: an exploratory post-hoc analysis.

Background: Euphoria is a complex, multifactorial problem that is reported as an adverse event in clinical trials of analgesics including pregabalin. The relationship between the reporting of euphoria events and pregabalin early treatment responses was examined in this exploratory post-hoc analysis.

Methods: Data were from patients with neuropathic or non-neuropathic chronic pain enrolled in 40 randomized clinical trials, who received pregabalin (75-600 mg/day) or placebo.

Progression of conventional cardiovascular risk factors and vascular disease risk in individuals: insights from the PROG-IMT consortium.

Aims: Averaged measurements, but not the progression based on multiple assessments of carotid intima-media thickness, (cIMT) are predictive of cardiovascular disease (CVD) events in individuals. Whether this is true for conventional risk factors is unclear.

Methods And Results: An individual participant meta-analysis was used to associate the annualised progression of systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol with future cardiovascular disease risk in 13 prospective cohort studies of the PROG-IMT collaboration ( = 34,072).

Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy: A 7-Letter Coding System That Supports Decision-Making for the Surgical Approach.

Objective: To validate with a prospective study a decision-supporting coding system for the surgical approach for multilevel degenerative cervical myelopathy.

Methods: Ten cases were presented on an internet platform, including clinical and imaging data. A single-approach (G1), a choice between 2 (G2), or 3 approaches (G3) were options.

painPREDICT: first interim data from the development of a new patient-reported pain questionnaire to predict treatment response using sensory symptom profiles.

Sensory symptom patterns may be useful for predicting treatment response, and, thus, improve individual therapy in patients suffering from neuropathic pain (NeP). Existing screening questionnaires focus predominately on neuropathic mechanisms without consideration of nociceptive mechanisms or mixed pain states. This study aimed to develop a new questionnaire, painPREDICT, using a wide set of patient-reported descriptors potentially associated with neuropathic and nociceptive pain mechanisms, and to explore sensory symptom patterns.

Current understanding of the mixed pain concept: a brief narrative review.

Despite having been referenced in the literature for over a decade, the term "mixed pain" has never been formally defined. The strict binary classification of pain as being either purely neuropathic or nociceptive once left a good proportion of patients unclassified; even the recent adoption of "nociplastic pain" in the IASP Terminology leaves out patients who present clinically with a substantial overlap of nociceptive and neuropathic symptoms. For these patients, the term "mixed pain" is increasingly recognized and accepted by clinicians.

Predictive value for cardiovascular events of common carotid intima media thickness and its rate of change in individuals at high cardiovascular risk - Results from the PROG-IMT collaboration.

Aims: Carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) predicts cardiovascular (CVD) events, but the predictive value of CIMT change is debated. We assessed the relation between CIMT change and events in individuals at high cardiovascular risk.

Methods And Results: From 31 cohorts with two CIMT scans (total n = 89070) on average 3.

S1 guidelines: Lipedema.

The present, revised guidelines on lipedema were developed under the auspices of and funded by the German Society of Phlebology (DGP). The recommendations are based on a systematic literature search and the consensus of eight medical societies and working groups. The guidelines contain recommendations with respect to diagnosis and management of lipedema.