Gustafssonjonasson9461

The search for additional pharmacotherapeutic agents that could be used singly or in combination with hydroxyurea and/or l-glutamine awaits their dawn hopefully in the near future. The purpose of this review is to describe the various manifestations of SCD, their pathophysiology and their current management. Recent impressive advances in understanding the pathophysiology of pain promise the determination of agents that could replace or minimize the use of opioids. OBJECTIVE Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is an inherited blood disorder that includes acute pain episodes and chronic pain that can dramatically impact quality of life and goal-achievement. Our staff had limited success in connecting families with the Pain, Palliative Care and Integrative Medicine Clinic (PPCIM) to receive specialized skills for pain management. We created a partnership between Hematology and PPCIM to provide SCD patients/families with needed resources. DESIGN/SETTING In 2016, key stakeholders collaborated to create a Sickle Cell Wellness Clinic (SCWC) clinic to provide families access to integrative medicine and wellness strategies. Design/structure, based on family focus group data and staff expertise, included a half-day, 7-discipline clinic housed in the PPCIM space. Patients with SCD, ages 8-20, learned strategies in an effort to improve health care utilization and increase overall quality of life. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES/RESULTS Feedback from two successful pilot clinics in 2017 was incorporated into the formal roll-out of SCWC in 2018. SCWCs continued monthly for one year, serving a total of 20 families post-pilot. SCD patients increased follow-up appointment engagement in the PPCIM clinic following SCWC and reported high levels of satisfaction with their healthcare experience. CONCLUSIONS It is feasible to run a multidisciplinary clinic focused on pain management, coping skills, and healthy living with SCD. Providers benefited from the opportunity to collaborate with other disciplines. Patient and family feedback was positive, highlighted benefits of being introduced to new modalities, and reported advantages of meeting other patients/families in a new setting. Persistent head and neck myofascial pain is among the most frequently reported pain complaints featuring major variability in treatment approaches and perception of improvement. Acupuncture is one of the least invasive complimentary modalities that can optimize conventional treatment. The aim of this review was to determine the evidence for the effectiveness of acupuncture in the management of localized persistent myofascial head and neck pain. Only randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs) were included. The search was conducted in PubMed, Ovid Medline, Embase, Google Scholar, and Cochrane Library in addition to manual search. The main outcome measure was the comparison of the mean pain intensity score on VAS between acupuncture and sham-needling/no intervention groups. Safety data and adherence rate were also investigated. Six RCTs were identified with variable risk of bias. All included studies reported reduction in VAS pain intensity scores in the groups receiving acupuncture when compared to sham needling/no intervention. Meta-analysis, using a weighted mean difference as the effect estimate, included only 4 RCTs, revealed a 19.04 point difference in pain intensity between acupuncture and sham-needling/no intervention (95 %CI -29.13 to -8.95). VE-822 ATR inhibitor High levels of safety were demonstrated by the low rates of side effects/withdrawal. Inconsistency in reporting of outcomes was a major limitation. In conclusion, moderate-quality evidence suggests that acupuncture may be an effective and safe method in relieving persistent head and neck myofascial pain. Optimizing study designs and standardizing outcome measures are needed for future RCTs. BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Patients undergoing continuous hemodialysis experience the arteriovenous fistula puncture-related pain approximately 300 times per year. Pain management is important priorities in painful procedures. Therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis study was conducted to determine the effect of cryotherapy on arteriovenous fistula puncture-related pain in hemodialysis patients. METHODS This systematic review and meta-analysis study was conducted by searching the related article with using the keywords including Cryotherapy, Ice, Punctures, Catheterization, Pain, and Fistula (using AND & OR operators) through Iranian (including SID, and Magiran) and international databases (including Embase, Web of Science, Medline via PubMed, Scopus, and ProQuest). Interventional studies in English or Persian languages were included in the study without time limitation. Finally, after excluding duplicates, screening based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, and quality assessment (based on the JADAD standard checklist), 8 studies entered the systematic review process (Qualitative Synthesis) and 6 studies entered the meta-analysis process (Quantitative Synthesis). RESULTS Based on the results of the review, the included studies were conducted between 2008-2017. The total number of participants in all studies obtained through systematic review (8 studies) was 422 with an age of 16 years old and above. The review of studies showed a positive effect of cryotherapy on reducing the arteriovenous fistula puncture-related pain in hemodialysis patients. CONCLUSION Regarding the positive effect of cryotherapy on arteriovenous fistula puncture-related pain, cryotherapy as a low-risk and uncomplicated procedure seems to be effective and useful in reducing pain and ultimately reducing its unpleasant psychological and physical side effects. OBJECTIVES Much epidemiological evidence links diabetes mellitus (DM) to the development of multiple cancers and, in particular, the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The aim of this study was to investigate whether Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) reduces the incidence of HCC in patients receiving Western antidiabetic drugs. INTERVENTIONS AND MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES This retrospective cohort study used data from the National Health Insurance Research Database involving 81,105 diabetic patients, including 5122 CHM users and 25,966 non-CHM users. Analyses of treatment effects were adjusted for covariates including gender, age, comorbidities, antidiabetic drugs and liver medications. NodeXL software performed a network analysis to identify the 50 most commonly used CHM herbs and formulas. RESULTS In Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for demographic and clinical characteristics, DM patients exposed to adjuvant CHM therapy were significantly less likely to develop HCC compared with non-CHM users (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 0.