Active clinical trials for "Chronic Pain"

Chronic pain causes immense suffering and reductions in quality of life as well as enormous socioeconomic costs. Very many chronic pain patients fall into the category of unspecific pain, i.e. pain without clear medical explanation, with lacking effective treatments. It is assumed that a negative hedonic shift, characterized by excessive emotional-motivational processing and neg-ative affect, contributes causally to the development and maintenance of chronic pain. The mechanisms leading to such a shift are largely unclear; however, learning mechanisms appear likely candidates, possibly causing decreased connectivity in the fronto-striatal brain circuits. The project's over-all aim is to characterize mechanisms of emotional-motivational pain pro-cessing. The specific objectives are to illustrate that emotional-motivational pain components are heightened in chronic pain and that they can be de-creased by counterconditioning as an important and pervasive mechanisms in everyday life. Furthermore, its neural correlates in fronto-striatal networks underlying the conditioning effects will be characterized.

Patients with chronic pain are often prescribed long-term opioid therapy, despite the serious risks and growing concerns related to opioid use. The Toronto General Hospital has created the world's first multidisciplinary perioperative Transitional Pain Service Program (TPSP) aimed at reducing the incidence and severity of chronic post-surgical pain. The TPSP incorporates a variety of mechanisms and interventions to help patients manage pain and to wean off opioids. The approach consists of: pain education, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and an e-mobile self- management tool to help patients manage chronic pain more effectively. With the TPSP team, the investigators hope to continually assist patients to achieve a balance between the benefits and potential harms of opioid use to promote long-term health and well-being.

Chronic pain is a major problem in the USA and the rest of the world, currently, all available pharmacological interventions carry with them significant side effects. Pain clinics are specially equipped to perform intentional pain procedures to manage pain. However, there remain groups of patients what neither benefit from pharmacological nor from interventional pain procedures. Other methods have shown only minor benefits such as hypnosis or cognitive behavioral therapy. Therefore, other techniques need to be investigated. Light therapy has been shown to have significant biological effects on humans. For example, light therapy is used to manage depression. Several clinical trials have shown that certain wavelengths of light can improve wound healing, decrease temporomandibular joint dysfunction (TMJ) pain, and decrease fear of back pain. In these trials, light was directed at the site of pain. In an attempt to better understand the effect of different wavelengths of light, pre-clinical studies were conducted using rats. The investigators have shown green and blue Light emitting diode, (LED) light produced antinociception (analgesia) and reversed neuropathic pain associated with several models of chronic pain. The analgesic effect of light was completely blocked when rats had their eyes covered, this suggests that the analgesic effects seen are mainly due to systemic effect through the visual system. Preliminary experiments on rats suggest that this effect is mediated through the endogenous opioids and cannabinoid system. The investigators believe that LED light is a safe alternative to pharmacological intervention to manage pain by stimulating the endogenous endorphin and cannabinoid systems. The investigators initial target participants with history of HIV, chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy and fibromyalgia. Participants will be divided into 2 groups. The first group will be a control group exposed to white LED light. The second group will be exposed to green LED light, respectively. Participants will be asked to take LED light home and will be asked to set in a dark room for 2 hours daily for 3 months with their LED light on. At the end of the 3 months trial, the investigator will assess their pain intensity, analgesic use, and overall quality of life. The investigators hypothesis is that participants exposed to green and blue light will have less use of analgesics and will have better life quality.

The goal is to document efficacy of PF-SCS therapy in a blinded fashion and better understand how SCS therapy works in the clinical setting. Overall the investigators hope to improve patient care and selection of candidates who have the best potential for effective pain relief from an expensive and invasive therapy.

This is an open-label, single center design. In the first stage, five (5) healthy individuals will receive a microdose (10µg) of [11C]-NOP46, immediately followed by whole body positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) to determine dosimetry and perform an initial safety evaluation of the radiotracer. If no toxicities develop, then the investigation will move to the second stage, in which thirty (30) patients with chronic pain will receive a microdose of [11C]-NOP46 followed by PET/CT of region of interests.

This randomized controlled study compares tapering of long-term opioid therapy in a population with chronic non-cancer pain with control group constituted of waiting list. Half of participants receives intervention at baseline and the other half are controls but receives intervention after 4 months. Ethical approval to follow up excluded participants denying tapering at baseline.

This project examines, in chronic pain, the mechanisms of immersive virtual reality compared to the mechanisms of placebo hypoalgesia. The potential of developing new non-pharmacological premises for low-risk interventions for pain management is high.

The overarching aim of the Young Adult Clinic (YAC) study is to evaluate the DOZE app, a digital, transdiagnostic behavioral sleep medicine and self-management approach in young adult patients (ages 18-25) with chronic pain.

Lobectomy is a major, high-risk surgical procedure that in addition to one-lung ventilation (OLV) exerts a potent surgical stress response. An overwhelming immune cell recruitment may lead to excessive tissue damage, peripheral organ injury and immunoparesis. The effect of anesthesia on the immune system is modest, compared to the effects induced by major surgery. However, to an immunocompromised patient, due to cancer and/or other comorbidities, the immunosuppressive effects of anesthesia may increase the incidence of post-operative infections, morbidity, and mortality. Exogenous opioids have been correlated with immunosuppression, opioid-induced hyperalgesia, and respiratory depression, with deleterious outcomes. An Opioid-Free Anaesthesia-Analgesia (OFA-A) strategy is based on the administration of a variety of anaesthetic/analgesic and other pharmacological agents with different mechanisms of action, including immunomodulating and anti-inflammatory effects. Our basic hypothesis is that the implementation of a perioperative multimodal OFA-A strategy, will lead to an attenuated surgical stress response and attenuated immunosuppression, compared to a conventional Opioid-Based Anaesthesia-Analgesia (OBA-A) strategy. The aforementioned effects, are presumed to be associated with equal or improved analgesia and decreased incidence of postoperative infections compared to a perioperative OBA-A technique.

This is a single site, two-arm, parallel group randomized clinical trial comparing the effect of two mindfulness-based interventions (Mindful Interoceptive Mapping vs. Mindfulness of the Breath) on opioid-treated chronic pain patients' pleasant/unpleasant sensation reports and opioid use.