Citations

Background Lumbar facet arthropathy (LFA) is a degenerative, arthritic joint disorder and a common specific cause of axial low back pain and functional impairment. Currently, no disease-modifying therapies are available for symptomatic LFA. Mesenchymal stem/stromal cell (MSC)-based therapy represents an emerging regenerative treatment modality with the promise to target the underlying pathophysiology of LFA. Despite encouraging clinical evidence supporting the safety and efficacy of MSC therapy in other osteoarthritis, its therapeutic utility in LFA remains largely unexplored. We recently completed a prospective, single-arm, open-label phase I clinical trial that demonstrated a favourable safety profile and preliminary clinical benefit following intra-articular administration of bone marrow-derived MSCs (BMSCs) in patients with symptomatic LFA. Building on these findings, we present the protocol for CellKine II , a prospective, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over phase II clinical trial to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of intra-articular delivery of allogeneic, culture-expanded BMSCs in patients with painful LFA. Methods and analysis This study is a single-centre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over phase II trial with a target accrual of 40 patients. Eligible patients will be randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to receive a single intra-articular injection of either Arm A: BMSC or Arm B: Placebo (dimethyl sulfoxide). At the 6-month follow-up, all patients will be unblinded. Patients initially randomised to Arm A will continue follow-up for up to 12 months. Patients initially randomised to Arm B may cross over to receive the BMSC treatment, followed by an additional 12 months of post-BMSC treatment follow-up, or they may continue observation for another 6 months without BMSC treatment. Overall, each patient will be followed up to 12 months after BMSC treatment. The primary endpoints are back pain, functional outcomes and adverse events at 6 months post-randomisation. Ethics and dissemination This study will be conducted in compliance with U.S. federal regulations and Mayo Clinic institutional research policies and procedures. The protocol has been approved by the Mayo Clinic Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the Data Safety Monitoring Board (IRB No. 21-013278). The results of this trial will be disseminated through publication in peer-reviewed journals and on ClinicalTrials.gov. Trial registration number NCT06001853 .

Abstract Pain medicine triage plays a crucial role in ensuring patients receive timely and appropriate care by scheduling them to the most suitable treatment path. However, the absence of standardized triage protocols in pain medicine often leads to inefficiencies, including delay of care and wastage of healthcare resources. This study aims to develop a rule-based automated referral triage system leveraging information from patients' medical notes for scheduling patients to specific procedures in the pain medicine department. The proposed triage system, grounded in the knowledge and expertise of clinical providers, processed referral order comments and referring provider notes by iteratively refining the Natural Language Processing (NLP) rules and post-processing rules through intensively reviewing 76 patients. A post-processing regression model was incorporated to further enhance the accuracy. To ensure alignment with real-world practices, the system was integrated into an electronic health record (EHR) platform for real-time application, streamlining scheduling workflows and enhancing usability in daily clinical settings. After three iterations, the proposed NLP and post-processing rules improved accuracy from 76.3 to 80.3% compared to machine learning (ML) approaches in the preliminary study. The post-processing model further increased accuracy to 84.2%. The implementation accuracy of 200 cases for the first 3 months was consistent with our prediction at 83.5%, which concluded that the improvement over ML models (p-value = 0.018) was statistically significant at 95% significance level. This study demonstrates the feasibility and benefits of a knowledge-driven approach to referral triage in specialized medical fields. It lays a foundation for others in building similar triaging solutions to other specialties.

Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is the most common genetic kidney disorder. It is primarily caused by pathogenic variants in the PKD1 or PKD2 genes. This leads to the development of numerous kidney cysts, which can result in kidney enlargement and progression to kidney failure. Pain is a common symptom in ADPKD and can negatively affect quality of life (QOL). This pain is often due to the continuous growth of kidney and liver cysts or associated cystic complications. We present a case of a 29-year-old woman with ADPKD who experienced chronic, refractory right-sided flank pain that significantly affected her QOL. Her pain persisted despite taking daily multimodal analgesics and undergoing multiple invasive interventions. She had an unusual asymmetric disease with the right kidney accounting for only 24% of her kidney function. After exhausting all other pain control strategies, she underwent right nephrectomy and partial hepatectomy, which led to substantial improvement in pain and QOL. This review describes the causes, manifestations, and management strategies for abdominal and/or flank pain in ADPKD, including a practical stepwise algorithm to guide clinicians in managing pain and improve QOL of patients with ADPKD. Pain in ADPKD can either be acute or chronic and can lead to significant physical and psychologic distress. Effective pain management in ADPKD requires a multidisciplinary approach, incorporating both nonpharmacologic and pharmacologic interventions such as gabapentin or tolvaptan in select cases. Interventions considered in ADPKD pain control include cyst aspiration with sclerotherapy, celiac plexus blockade, spinal cord stimulation, renal denervation, or nephrectomy.

AbstractPersistent chest pain (PCP) following acute COVID‐19 infection is a commonly reported symptom with an unclear etiology, making its management challenging. This scoping review aims to address the knowledge gap surrounding the characteristics of PCP following COVID‐19, its causes, and potential treatments. This is a scoping review of 64 studies, including observational (prospective, retrospective, cross‐sectional, case series, and case–control) and one quasi‐experimental study, from databases including Embase, PubMed/MEDLINE, Cochrane CENTRAL, Google Scholar, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Scopus. Studies on patients with PCP following mild, moderate, and severe COVID‐19 infection were included. Studies with patients of any age, with chest pain that persisted following acute COVID‐19 disease, irrespective of etiology or duration were included. A total of 35 studies reported PCP symptoms following COVID‐19 (0.24%–76.6%) at an average follow‐up of 3 months or longer, 12 studies at 1–3 months and 17 studies at less than 1‐month follow‐up or not specified. PCP was common following mild—severe COVID‐19 infection, and etiology was mostly not reported. Fourteen studies proposed potential etiologies including endothelial dysfunction, cardiac ischemia, vasospasm, myocarditis, cardiac arrhythmia, pneumonia, pulmonary embolism, postural tachycardia syndrome, or noted cardiac MRI (cMRI) changes. Evaluation methods included common cardiopulmonary tests, as well as less common tests such as flow‐mediated dilatation, cMRI, single‐photon emission computed tomography myocardial perfusion imaging, and cardiopulmonary exercise testing. Only one study reported a specific treatment (sulodexide). PCP is a prevalent symptom following COVID‐19 infection, with various proposed etiologies. Further research is needed to establish a better understanding of the causes and to develop targeted treatments for PCP following COVID‐19.