Active clinical trials for "Neuralgia"

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the sensory thalamus has been proposed for 40 years to treat medically refractory neuropathic pain, but its efficacy remains partial and unpredictable. Recently, bilateral DBS of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a brain region involved in the integration of the affective and cognitive aspects of pain, has been successively proposed to treat few patients suffering from refractory chronic pain, by decreasing the emotional impact of their chronic pain. ACC-DBS could be an alternative or complementary approach to thalamic DBS in these patients, but the consequences of chronic dACC-DBS on cognition and affects have not been studied specifically. The primary objective is to evaluate the feasibility and safety of bilateral ACC-DBS combined with unilateral thalamic DBS in patients suffering from chronic unilateral pain, refractory to medical treatment. Secondary objective will evaluate the efficacy of this combined DBS compared to thalamic DBS only.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is associated with severe neuropathic pain that is often refractory to all pharmacological intervention. Preliminary data suggest brivarecetum is a mechanism-based pharmacological intervention for neuropathic pain in SCI. This randomized, placebo-controlled pilot clinical trial will assess feasibility of a 3-month treatment course with brivarecetum.

This study is designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of exosome deployment in patients with Craniofacial Neuralgia. Secondarily, this study is designed to rigorously evaluate for any adverse events that may be related to the administration and reception of exosomes.

To compare the efficacy and tolerability of three different doses of Pascorbin® besides standard medication with placebo and the reduction of herpes zoster-associated clinical symptoms as an add-on therapy for patients suffering from acute herpes zoster in primary care

Neuropathic pain (NP) affects up to 8% of the general population and its successful management is an unmet medical need. Half of the patients report inadequate response to therapy and unwanted side effects such as sedation and cognitive impairments, limiting drug use in daily practice and significantly accounting for the high incidence of treatment failure. Dysfunction of synaptic inhibition within the spinal cord is known to be one of the main contributing factors to central sensitization that governs NP. Facilitation of GABAergic inhibition in the dorsal horn through GABAA receptors allosteric modulation would be a rational approach to NP management. New insights on the associations between GABAA receptors α subunits and function have opened new perspectives in preclinical research. Data from genetically modified mice demonstrates the possibility, through selective allosteric modulation of the GABAA receptor, to induce its beneficial antihyperalgesic effects without inducing its cognitive and sedative effects. N-Desmethylclobazam (NDMC), clobazam's main active metabolite, demonstrated in vitro and in vivo a high selectivity profile with a clear preference for GABAA α2-subtypes receptors (antihyperalgesia) over α1 receptors responsible for sedative effects across a wide concentration range. Taking into consideration the high prevalence and burden of neuropathic and chronic pain worldwide and the fact that these patients are nowadays left with sedative and only partially effective drugs, NDMC qualifies as a good molecule to seek confirmation of the clinical utility of selective GABAA allosteric modulators in NP patients.The main objective is to assess the efficacy of repeated doses of NDMC on neuropathic pain compared to placebo.

The increased life expectancy of Patients Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) has increased the need for therapies for chronic conditions, such as chronic pain. Pain in the HIV population is often refractory and ends up being treated with chronic opioids, which are associated with adverse effects, including hyperalgesia, constipation, and risk of overdose. Naltrexone is an opioid antagonist used in the treatment of alcohol and opioid use disorders. Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN), naltrexone at a much lower dose, is thought to be an immune modulator and has been associated with an increased CD4 count in PLWHA. Repurposing this medication is relatively inexpensive, and has the potential to expand access to treatment for a painful condition experienced in PLWHA. While there are many case reports on the efficacy of LDN in symptom reduction, there are only a small number of clinical trials that specifically examine pain and symptom relief. This study will include patients who are not completely virologically controlled and will monitor the CD4 counts drawn as a part of routine care. If the CD4 count improves with LDN and with reduced symptoms, this could be a significant improvement in HIV therapy for symptom control. There have been studies showing cytokine reduction in fibromyalgia patients but they did not investigate the correlation with cytokines and pain relief. This study involves repurposing of a drug used for substance use disorder to a medication with the potential to treat pain and improve symptoms for PLWHA.

This study aims to increase the understanding of the pathophysiology of trigeminal neuralgia by investigating the potential association between blink reflex abnormalities and phenotypical traits e.g. clinical characteristics and neuroimaging findings.

Lipedema is a chronic progressive disease characterized by abnormal increase of subcutaneous adipose tissue. It is characterized by bilateral enlargement of the lower and/or upper extremities, typically sparing the hands and feet. This disease, which almost always affects women, has rarely been described in men due to hormonal disorders or concomitant diseases such as cirrhosis. Although the results vary, it has been reported that it is seen at a minimum rate of 1:72.000 or 11% of women are affected by this disease. Although it is a common disease, it can often be missed in daily practice. Therefore, it is very important to define the disease clinic well. Lipedema usually presents with swelling in the bilateral extremities. It begins in the post-adolescent period and is progressive. It does not respond to diet and exercise, does not improve with elevation, is spontaneous or painful to touch. Patients describe easy bruising with touch or minor trauma. In early lipedema, pain may be the main complaint in the extremities before the development of skin findings. Because of the absence of a defined clear pain pattern in these patients, diagnosis can be missed and confused with other diseases. In addition, it causes limitations in treatment of the pain. Adipose tissue can cause nociceptive and neuropathic pain because it contains both nociceptive neurons and neural innervation. It isn't known whether lipedema pain is of nociceptive or neuropathic origin. In different studies, the pain pattern is defined in different ways such as hyperalgesia, allodynia, spontaneous pain, blunt, heaviness, pressure, tearing, stabbing, severe and unbearable. In this study, the investigators aim to determine if the pain characteristics of patients with lipedema is neuropathic or not and to define the pain characteristics better in order to ensure earlier recognition and treatment of pain.

The Will Erwin Headache Research Center Study of Cluster Headache and Trigeminal Neuralgia is a prospective, multicenter, observational research network for subjects with Cluster Headache and/or Trigeminal Neuralgia.

Scientific research on pruritus is in intensive development, with significant advances in understanding its pathophysiology. The causes of pruritus are very huge; they can be classified into different categories; we can find dermatological causes, systemic causes, neuropathic or neurological causes, psychogenic or even idiopathic causes. The diagnosis of psychogenic pruritus is often over stated, when no cause is found; therefore, it is important to see what is really relieving from psychic so as not to over-diagnose and adopt a therapy more in line with the real problem of the patient. In daily practice, it seems to have a tendency to separate psychogenic and neurogenic etiologies in the diagnosis of neuropathic or psychogenic pruritus. In the case of patients with psychogenic pruritus and neuropathic pruritus, no study has attempted to study the respective part of psychogenic and neurogenic components. Consequently, it would therefore be interesting to assess the areas of superposition and distinction of neuropathic and psychogenic pruritus. The aim of this pilot study is to assess the psychogenic and neurogenic components of psychogenic pruritus and neuropathic pruritus in order to improve understanding of the mechanism and therefore their management. The main objective of this study is to highlight the differences and the potential common characteristics between psychogenic and neuropathic pruritus in order to improve the differential diagnosis between these two pathologies. The secondary objective of this study is to describe the psychogenic and neurogenic characteristics of psychogenic and neuropathic pruritus.