Mechanism-based Choice of Therapy for Neuropathic Pain

Rambam Health Care Campus

Status

Completed

Conditions

Pain

Treatments

Drug: Duloxetine

Drug: Pregabalin

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT01359514

PostOperativePain05CTIL

Details and patient eligibility

About

Mechanism-based choice of therapy for neuropathic pain:

Can treatments success in neuropathic post-operative pain be coupled to psychophysical pain modulation profile?

Full description

Neuropathic or idiopathic pain patients will be assessed with the variety of pain tests including the conditioned pain modulation (CPM) and temporal summation (TS). Then, they will be offered on the double-blind design a several weeks treatment with either pregabalin or duloxetine. Patients will be followed-up weekly by phone for their pain relief and will be re-assessed in the lab toward the end of the treatment. The investigators suggest that patients with less-efficient CPM (deficient pain inhibition) will "earn" more pain relief from the treatment with duloxetine, while the patients with the enhanced pain summation will response better to pregabalin.

Enrollment

32 patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 75 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

patients planned for thoracotomy

Exclusion criteria

age below 18 and above 75 years
patients with psychiatric or cognitive dysfunction precluding use of psychophysics
those who cannot communicate in Hebrew
patients with existing thoracic or other current chronic pain