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Pain, placebo, and test of treatment efficacy: a narrative review
- Source :
- Vase, L & Wartolowska, K 2019, ' Pain, placebo, and test of treatment efficacy : a narrative review ', British Journal of Anaesthesia, vol. 123, no. 2, pp. e254-e262 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bja.2019.01.040
- Publication Year :
- 2018
-
Abstract
- Summary Over the past decade, the mechanisms underlying placebo effects have begun to be identified. At the same time, the placebo response appears to have increased in pharmacological trials and marked placebo effects are found in neurostimulation and surgical trials, thereby posing the question whether non-pharmacological interventions should be placebo-controlled to a greater extent. In this narrative review we discuss how the knowledge of placebo mechanisms may help to improve placebo control in pharmacological and non-pharmacological trials. We review the psychological, neurobiological, and genetic mechanisms underlying placebo analgesia and outline the current problems and potential solutions to the challenges with placebo control in trials on pharmacological, neurostimulation, and surgical interventions. We particularly focus on how patients' perception of the therapeutic intervention, and their expectations towards treatment efficacy may help develop more precise placebo controls and blinding procedures and account for the contribution of placebo factors to the efficacy of active treatments. Finally, we discuss how systematic investigations into placebo mechanisms across various pain conditions and types of treatment are needed in order to ‘personalise' the placebo control to the specific pathophysiology and interventions, which may ultimately lead to identification of more effective treatment for pain patients. In conclusion this review shows that it is important to understand how patients' perception and expectations influence the efficacy of active and placebo treatments in order to improve the test of new treatments. Importantly, this applies not only to assessment of drug efficacy but also to non-pharmacological trials on surgeries and stimulation procedures.
- Subjects :
- operative
medicine.medical_specialty
Blinding
medicine.medical_treatment
Psychological intervention
Pain
Placebo
law.invention
Efficacy
Placebos
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Randomized controlled trial
030202 anesthesiology
law
Intervention (counseling)
implantable neurostimulators
Medicine
Humans
Neurostimulation
Biopsychosocial Factor
business.industry
Placebo Effect
Test (assessment)
surgical procedures
Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine
Treatment Outcome
Physical therapy
treatment outcome
placebo effect
Analgesia
business
randomised controlled trial
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14716771
- Volume :
- 123
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- British journal of anaesthesia
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....8c49a43d79bc3014e41622f30193899b
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bja.2019.01.040