NCT04220697

Central Sensitisation and Postoperative Pain

Behavioural and Neurophysiological Measurements for the Assessment of Central Sensitisation and Postoperative Pain

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 70 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Université Catholique de Louvain · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 80 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

One out of 10 patients undergoing surgery develops persistent post-surgical pain (PPSP). Unfortunately, available therapies for treating this pain have limited success. It is therefore of great importance to find strategies to prevent PPSP. The goal of this project is to find new screening tools that identify patients that are at risk for developing PPSP. Tissue injury and inflammation following surgery increase the excitability of spinal nociceptive neurons ("central sensitisation", CS) with pain hypersensitivity as consequence. It is thought that CS plays an important role in persistent pain. The first objective of this project is to assess in human patients if the propensity to develop CS manifested as secondary hyperalgesia before surgery is predictive for PPSP. In addition, we will test if the frequency content of the resting-state EEG reflecting the initial state of the brain will be related to the propensity for developing CS and to the presence of PPSP at two months after surgery.

Conditions

• Thoracotomy
• Hyperalgesia
• Hyperalgesia, Secondary
• Central Sensitisation
• Electroencephalography
• Persistent Postsurgical Pain
• Humans

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	electroencephalography (EEG)	recording of resting state EEG using 64 surface electrodes
OTHER	questionnaires	Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS) Neuropathic Pain questionnaire (DN4) Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) Fatigue Assessment Scale (FAS)
OTHER	high frequency electrical stimulation of the forearm skin (HFS)	HFS consists of transcutaneous electrical stimuli delivered as 42 Hz trains (pulse width: 2 ms) lasting 1 s. The trains are repeated 12 times. Each train is separated by 10 seconds.
OTHER	cutaneous mechanical pinprick stimulation	Mechanical pinprick stimuli will be applied manually by the operator on the skin using a mechanical stimulator (maximum weight 128 mN).

Timeline

• Start date: 2020-01-29
• Primary completion: 2022-09-30
• Completion: 2022-12-31
• First posted: 2020-01-07
• Last updated: 2021-10-06

Locations

2 sites across 1 country: Belgium