Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) in the symptomatic management of chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome: a placebo-control randomized trial

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to investigate the therapeutic efficacy of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) in the symptomatic management of chronic prostatitis pain/chronic pelvic pain syndrome. DESIGN: A pretest, posttest randomized double blind design was used in data collection. PARTICIPANT: Twenty-four patients diagnosed with chronic prostatitis- category IIIA and IIIB of the National Institute of Health Chronic Pain (NIH-CP) were referred for physiotherapy from the Urology department. Intervention: Pre treatment pain level was assessed using the NIH-CP (pain domain) index. The TENS group received TENS treatment, 5 times per week for a period of 4 weeks (mean treatment frequency, intensity, pulse width and duration of 60Hz, 100µS, 25mA and 20 minutes respectively). The Analgesic group received no TENS treatment but continued analgesics; the Control group received no TENS and Analgesic but placebo. All subjects were placed on antibiotics throughout the treatment period. Outcome measures: Post-treatment pain level was also assessed using NIH-CP pain index. RESULT: Findings of the study revealed significant effect of TENS on chronic prostatitis pain at p < 0.05. CONCLUSION: TENS is an effective means of non-invasive symptomatic management of chronic prostatitis pain

Meta-analysis of Dense Genecentric Association Studies Reveals Common and Uncommon Variants Associated with Height

Height is a classic complex trait with common variants in a growing list of genes known to contribute to the phenotype. Using a genecentric genotyping array targeted toward cardiovascular-related loci, comprising 49,320 SNPs across approximately 2000 loci, we evaluated the association of common and uncommon SNPs with adult height in 114,223 individuals from 47 studies and six ethnicities. A total of 64 loci contained a SNP associated with height at array-wide significance (p &lt; 2.4 x 10(-6)), with 42 loci surpassing the conventional genome-wide significance threshold (p &lt; 5 x 10(-8)). Common variants with minor allele frequencies greater than 5% were observed to be associated with height in 37 previously reported loci. In individuals of European ancestry, uncommon SNPs in IL11 and SMAD3, which would not be genotyped with the use of standard genome-wide genotyping arrays, were strongly associated with height (p &lt; 3 x 10(-11)). Conditional analysis within associated regions revealed five additional variants associated with height independent of lead SNPs within the locus, suggesting allelic heterogeneity. Although underpowered to replicate findings from individuals of European ancestry, the direction of effect of associated variants was largely consistent in African American, South Asian, and Hispanic populations. Overall, we show that dense coverage of genes for uncommon SNPs, coupled with large-scale meta-analysis, can successfully identify additional variants associated with a common complex trait