Safinamide for pain management in patients with Parkinson's disease

INTRODUCTION

Pain is often neglected in Parkinson's disease (PD), although it impacts most PD patients. While the mechanism of pain in PD is still being studied, various pharmacological, interventional, and alternative treatment options have been offered for pain relief. Safinamide, a recently approved drug for PD, has shown promising results in improving pain in patients with PD. Several clinical studies report changes in pain scores in PD patients treated with safinamide, but these have not been systematically summarized. Therefore, our main goal was to perform a systematic review and statistical analysis of relevant studies.

METHODS

A systematic search of studies was conducted using four databases: Pubmed, Cochrane Library, Google Scholar, and Scopus. The nine included randomized controlled trials did not provide sufficient data for a meta-analysis; therefore, we conducted a qualitative systematic review.

RESULTS

Our results suggest that safinamide at a daily dose of 100mg is more effective for treating PD pain than that of 50mg. Moreover, the reduction in fluctuation-related pain and pain from edema was more consistent when treated with safinamide compared to other PD pain types. We also attempted to suggest a mechanism of action for safinamide on pain processing in the brain, which should be explored in more detail in future studies.

CONCLUSION

Clinical evidence suggests that safinamide may be particularly beneficial for PD patients experiencing fluctuation-related pain and pain from edema, as these subtypes of pain showed greater improvement compared to other types of pain. Based on the findings of the included studies, safinamide appears to relieve the overall pain burden. However, the lack of sufficient data for conducting a meta-analysis highlights the need for future studies to report mean pain scores and their standard deviations.

Anesthetic management of endovascular neurosurgical procedures in acute ischemic stroke patients: A systematic review of meta-analyses

Restoration of cerebral circulation in the ischemic area is the most critical treatment task for reducing irreversible neuronal injury in ischemic stroke patients. The recanalización of appropriately selected patients became indispensable for improving clinical outcomes and resulted in the widespread revascularization techniques. There is no clear answer as to which anesthetic modality to use in ischemic stroke patients undergoing neuro-endovascular procedures. The purpose of this systematic review is to conduct a qualitative analysis of systematic reviews and meta-analyses (RSs & MAs) comparing general anesthesia and non-general anesthesia methods for cerebral endovascular interventions in acute ischemic stroke patients. We developed a protocol with the inclusion and exclusion criteria for matched publications and conducted a literature search in PubMed and Google Scholar. The literature search yielded 52 potential publications. Ten relevant RSs & MAs were included and analysed in this review. The decision about which anesthesia method to use for endovascular procedures in managing acute ischemic stroke patients should be made based on the patient's personal characteristics, pathophysiological phenotypes, clinical characteristics, and institutional experience.

Transversus abdominis plane block in adult open liver surgery patients: A systematic review with meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

AIM OF THE STUDY

The objective of this meta-analysis is to evaluate the efficacy of Transversus Abdominis Plane Block (TAPB) in pain control and recovery after open hepatic surgery.

METHODS

We searched for the articles in PubMed, Google Scholar, and the Cochrane Library published before March 2022. We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing TAPB with a placebo in adult patients after open liver surgery. Meta-analysis was conducted in RevMan 5.4. Methodological quality was assessed via the Jadad/Oxford scale and Cochrane Risk of Bias tool.

RESULTS

Five RCTs with 347 patients were included. All studies had an acceptable Jadad score or higher. For pain at rest at 24hours postoperatively, the standardized mean difference (SMD) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) was -1.08 [-1.97, -0.18], P-value 0.02, favoring TAPB. Models for total opioid consumption, nausea and vomiting, and duration of hospital stay did not demonstrate a difference between the groups. The model for time to first flatus favored TAPB with SMD with a 95% CI of -1.48 [-2.72, -0.24], P-value 0.02.

DISCUSSION

Our meta-analysis of five RCTs favored TAPB regarding pain control at rest and time to first flatus. Due to the small sample size and considerable heterogeneity, more RCTs are needed.

REGISTRATION NUMBER

CRD42022320565.