Central Sensitisation and Postoperative Pain

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

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).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Université Catholique de Louvain

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Valérie Lacroix, MD, PhD · Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc- Université Catholique de Louvain

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

SCREENING

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

80 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2020-01-29

Primary Completion

2022-09-30

Completion

2022-12-31

Countries

• Belgium

Study Locations