Divergent Sensory Phenotypes in Nonspecific Arm Pain: Comparisons With Cervical Radiculopathy

Abstract

When considering sensory phenotypes, neither individuals with NSAP nor individuals with cervical radiculopathy should be considered homogeneous. Therefore, people with either condition may warrant different intervention approaches according to their individual sensory phenotype. Issues relating to the clinical identification of sensory hypersensitivity and the validity of QST are highlighted.

Pain sensitization in people with knee osteoarthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Though, interestingly, when HPTs were sub-grouped into local and remote sites, people with knee OA were found to have significantly greater heat pain sensitivity at remote sites compared to controls, but not at local sites. It is possible that the lack of a significant difference locally between knee OA participants and controls may be linked to the presence of local hypoaesthesia, another sensory abnormality which has been found in people with knee OA 16 and other pain conditions 31,41 , and which could potentially influence sensitivity to heat pain. However, such analysis is beyond the scope of this review and warrants further investigation.…”

Are measures of pain sensitivity associated with pain and disability at 12‐month follow up in chronic neck pain?

“…We note that although the mean CPT scores in our cohort were similar to those of a previous whiplash cohort (Sterling et al, ), people who remained unrecovered in that study had higher CPT scores. Further, data from neck pain populations have identified the presence of pain sensitivity across study groups (Moloney et al, ; Moloney, Hall, & Doody, ; Rebbeck et al, ; Sterling et al, ), but not all participants in these studies have been found to demonstrate pain sensitivity and not all have poor outcomes (Moloney et al, ). The small sample size in the present study precluded meaningful analyses of subgroups of recovered vs .…”

The Potential Role of Sensory Testing, Skin Biopsy, and Functional Brain Imaging as Biomarkers in Chronic Pain Clinical Trials: IMMPACT Considerations

“…Importantly, it is not only neuropathic pain conditions that demonstrate variability in sensory profiles (e.g., [134, 148]. In particular, there is substantial heterogeneity across individuals with fibromyalgia (FM) and chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions such as osteoarthritis (OA; e.g., [3, 52, 65, 142, 153]), with similar sensory heterogeneity also observed in patients with systemic inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis [92].…”