Abstract
Introduction
Nociceptive and neuropathic components both contribute to chronic pain. Since these components require different pain management strategies, correct pain diagnosis before and during treatment is important.
Freynhagen et al. (2006) reported that they had developed and validated the pain-DETECT questionnaire (PD-Q) to detect neuropathic components in chronic low back pain patients. They also reported that 37% of unselected cohort of chronic LBP patients had predominantly neuropathic pain. However, the extent to which neuropathic components relate to the pathomechanism of pain deriving from osteoarthritis of hip joint remains unknown.
The purpose of this study was to utilize PD-Q to investigate the relationship between neuropathic components and pain deriving from osteoarthritis of the hip joint.
Methods
Between March and August 2010, 125 patients with osteoarthritis of hip joint completed PD-Qs about their pain. From this data set, we investigated whether or not the patients’ pain contained neuropathic components.
Results
Only 6.4% of the patients had a score 19, indicating that a neuropathic component was likely (90%). Conversely, 79.2 % had a score 12, indicating that a neuropathic component was unlikely (15%). For the remaining 14.4% with an intermediate score (13–18), the presence of a neuropathic component remained uncertain.
Conclusion
In this set of patients with osteoarthritis of hip joint, the PD-Q responses indicated that only a small percentage (6.4%) were likely to have a neuropathic component to their hip pain.
