The efficacy of self-management strategies for females with endometriosis : a systematic review

Self-management is critical for the care of endometriosis. Females with endometriosis frequently use self-management strategies to manage associated symptoms; however, the efficacy of such strategies is unknown. The aim of this review was to systematically appraise the evidence concerning efficacy of self-management strategies for endometriosis symptoms. Electronic databases, including Medline, Embase, Emcare, Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, were searched from inception to March 2021. We included peer-reviewed experimental studies published in English evaluating the efficacy of self-management strategies in human females laparoscopically diagnosed with endometriosis. Studies underwent screening, data extraction, and risk of bias appraisal (randomised studies: Risk of Bias 2 tool; non-randomised studies: Risk Of Bias In Non-randomized Studies – of Interventions tool). Of the fifteen studies included, 10 evaluated dietary supplements, three evaluated dietary modifications, one evaluated over-the-counter medication, and one evaluated exercise. Most studies had a high-critical risk of bias. Many self-management strategies were not more effective at reducing endometriosis symptoms compared to placebo or hormonal therapies. Where studies suggest efficacy for self-management strategies, no recommendations can be made due to the poor quality and heterogeneity of evidence. High-quality empirical evidence is required to investigate the efficacy of self-management strategies for females with endometriosis

Efficacy and Safety of Medicines Targeting Neurotrophic Factors in the Management of Low Back Pain: Protocol for a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Low back pain (LBP) is the leading cause of years lived with disability worldwide. Most people with LBP receive the diagnosis of nonspecific LBP or sciatica. Medications are commonly prescribed but have limited analgesic effects and are associated with adverse events. A novel treatment approach is to target neurotrophins such as nerve growth factor (NGF) to reduce pain intensity. NGF inhibitors have been tested in some randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in recent years, showing promise for the treatment of chronic LBP; however, their efficacy and safety need to be evaluated to guide regulatory actions. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of medicines targeting neurotrophins in patients with LBP and sciatica. METHODS In this systematic review, we will include published and unpublished records of parallel RCTs and the first phase of crossover RCTs that compare the effects of medicines targeting neurotrophins with any control group. We will search the CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, ClinicalTrials.gov, EU Clinical Trials Register, and WHO International Clinical Registry Platform databases from inception. Pairs of authors will independently screen the records for eligibility, and we will independently extract data in duplicate. We will conduct a quantitative synthesis (meta-analysis) with the studies that report sufficient data and compare the medicines of interest versus placebo. We will use random-effects models and calculate estimates of effects and heterogeneity for each outcome. We will assess the risk of bias for each study using the Cochrane Collaboration tool, and form judgments of confidence in the evidence according to GRADE recommendations. We will use the PRISMA statement to report the findings. We plan to conduct subgroup analyses by condition, type of medication, and time point. We will also assess the impact of a potential new trial on an existing meta-analysis. Data from studies that meet inclusion criteria but cannot be included in the meta-analysis will be reported narratively. RESULTS The protocol was registered on the Open Science Framework on May 19, 2020. As of December 2020, we have identified 1932 records. CONCLUSIONS This systematic review and meta-analysis will assess the evidence for the efficacy and safety of NGF inhibitors for pain in patients with nonspecific LBP and sciatica. The inclusion of new studies and unpublished data may improve the precision of the effect estimates and guide regulatory actions of the medications for LBP and sciatica. CLINICALTRIAL Open Science Framework; https://osf.io/b8adn/ INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT DERR1-10.2196/22905 </sec

The effects of graded motor imagery and its components on chronic pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in The Journal of Pain. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2013 The American Pain Society.Graded motor imagery (GMI) is becoming increasingly used in the treatment of chronic pain conditions. The objective of this systematic review was to synthesize all evidence concerning the effects of GMI and its constituent components on chronic pain. Systematic searches were conducted in 10 electronic databases. All randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of GMI, left/right judgment training, motor imagery, and mirror therapy used as a treatment for chronic pain were included. Methodological quality was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Six RCTs met our inclusion criteria, and the methodological quality was generally low. No effect was seen for left/right judgment training, and conflicting results were found for motor imagery used as stand-alone techniques, but positive effects were observed for both mirror therapy and GMI. A meta-analysis of GMI versus usual physiotherapy care favored GMI in reducing pain (2 studies, n = 63; effect size, 1.06 [95% confidence interval, .41, 1.71]; heterogeneity, I2 = 15%). Our results suggest that GMI and mirror therapy alone may be effective, although this conclusion is based on limited evidence. Further rigorous studies are needed to investigate the effects of GMI and its components on a wider chronic pain population.NHMR

Efficacy, acceptability, and safety of muscle relaxants for adults with non-specific low back pain : systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract: Objective To investigate the efficacy, acceptability, and safety of muscle relaxants for low back pain. Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Data sources: Medline, Embase, CINAHL, CENTRAL, ClinicalTrials.gov, clinicialtrialsregister.eu, and WHO ICTRP from inception to 23 February 2021. Eligibility criteria for study selection: Randomised controlled trials of muscle relaxants compared with placebo, usual care, waiting list, or no treatment in adults (≥18 years) reporting non-specific low back pain. Data extraction and synthesis: Two reviewers independently identified studies, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias and certainty of the evidence using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool and Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations, respectively. Random effects meta-analytical models through restricted maximum likelihood estimation were used to estimate pooled effects and corresponding 95% confidence intervals. Outcomes included pain intensity (measured on a 0-100 point scale), disability (0-100 point scale), acceptability (discontinuation of the drug for any reason during treatment), and safety (adverse events, serious adverse events, and number of participants who withdrew from the trial because of an adverse event). Results: 49 trials were included in the review, of which 31, sampling 6505 participants, were quantitatively analysed. For acute low back pain, very low certainty evidence showed that at two weeks or less non-benzodiazepine antispasmodics were associated with a reduction in pain intensity compared with control (mean difference -7.7, 95% confidence interval-12.1 to-3.3) but not a reduction in disability (-3.3, -7.3 to 0.7). Low and very low certainty evidence showed that non-benzodiazepine antispasmodics might increase the risk of an adverse event (relative risk 1.6, 1.2 to 2.0) and might have little to no effect on acceptability (0.8, 0.6 to 1.1) compared with control for acute low back pain, respectively. The number of trials investigating other muscle relaxants and different durations of low back pain were small and the certainty of evidence was reduced because most trials were at high risk of bias. Conclusions: Considerable uncertainty exists about the clinical efficacy and safety of muscle relaxants. Very low and low certainty evidence shows that non-benzodiazepine antispasmodics might provide small but not clinically important reductions in pain intensity at or before two weeks and might increase the risk of an adverse event in acute low back pain, respectively. Large, high quality, placebo controlled trials are urgently needed to resolve uncertainty. Systematic review registration PROSPERO CRD42019126820 and Open Science Framework https://osf.io/mu2f5/

Pain neuroscience education on YouTube

Objectives The Internet in general, and YouTube in particular, is now one of the most popular sources of health-related information. Pain neuroscience education has become a primary tool for managing persistent pain, based in part on the discovery that information about pain can change pain. Our objective was to examine the availability, characteristics, and content of YouTube videos that address the neuroscience of pain. Methods We conducted a systematic review of videos on YouTube using the search terms “pain education”, “what is pain”, and “pain brain” in January 2018. Videos were included if they were in English, were under 10 minutes long, and included information on the neuroscience of pain. Videos were coded for (i) descriptive characteristics (e.g., number of views, duration on YouTube), (ii) source and style, (iii) whether or not they addressed seven pre-determined target concepts of pain neuroscience education (e.g., ‘Pain is not an accurate marker of tissue state’), and (iv) how engaging they were. Results We found 106 unique videos that met the inclusion criteria. The videos ranged from having four views to over five million views (Mdn = 1,163 views), with the three most highly viewed videos accounting for 75% of the total views. Animated videos were much more highly viewed than non-animated videos. Only a small number of videos had been posted by a clearly-identifiable reputable source such as an academic or medical institution (10%), although a number of videos were posted by healthcare professionals and professional medical societies. For a small number of videos (7%), the source was unclear. We found 17 videos that addressed at least one target concept of pain neuroscience science education, only nine of which were considered to be at least somewhat engaging. The target concept ‘Pain is a brain output’ was considered to be well addressed by the most videos (N = 11), followed by ‘Pain is a protector’ (N = 10). We found only one video that adequately addressed all seven target concepts of pain neuroscience education. Discussion YouTube contains a variety of videos that practitioners, patients, and families may view to access pain neuroscience education information. A small portion of these videos addressed one or more target concepts of pain neuroscience education in an engaging manner. It is yet to be determined to what extent patients are able to learn information from these videos, to what extent the videos promote behavior change, and thus to what extent the videos may be useful for clinical practice

Response to: Yang et al. 2020 ‘The efficacy of nerve growth factor antibody for the treatment of osteoarthritis pain and chronic low-back pain: A meta-analysis’, Frontiers in Pharmacology

This is the data and code for our reproduction. The letter to the editor about Yang et al. (2020) has been submitted to Frontiers in Pharmacology

Evidence of impaired proprioception in chronic, idiopathic neck pain : systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Despite common use of proprioceptive retraining interventions in people with chronic, idiopathic neck pain, evidence that proprioceptive dysfunction exists in this population is lacking. Determining whether proprioceptive dysfunction exists in people with chronic neck pain has clear implications for treatment prescription. Purpose: The aim of this study was to synthesize and critically appraise all evidence evaluating proprioceptive dysfunction in people with chronic, idiopathic neck pain by completing a systematic review and meta-analysis. Data Sources: MEDLINE, CINAHL, PubMed, Allied and Complementary Medicine, EMBASE, Academic Search Premier, Scopus, Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro), and Cochrane Collaboration databases were searched. Study Selection: All published studies that compared neck proprioception (joint position sense) between a chronic, idiopathic neck pain sample and asymptomatic controls were included. Data Extraction: Two independent reviewers extracted relevant population and proprioception data and assessed methodological quality using a modified Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) statement. Data Synthesis: Thirteen studies were included in the present review. Meta-analysis on 10 studies demonstrated that people with chronic neck pain perform significantly worse on head-to-neutral repositioning tests, with a moderate standardized mean difference of 0.44 (95% confidence interval=0.25, 0.63). Two studies evaluated head repositioning using trunk movement (no active head movement thus hypothesized to remove vestibular input) and showed conflicting results. Three studies evaluated complex or postural repositioning tests; postural repositioning was no different between groups, and complex movement tests were impaired only in participants with chronic neck pain if error was continuously evaluated throughout the movement. Limitations: A paucity of studies evaluating complex or postural repositioning tests does not permit any solid conclusions about them