Postembolization Pain Reduced By Psychological Intervention

Main Category: GastroIntestinal / Gastroenterology
Also Included In: Pain / Anesthetics;  Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 14 Mar 2008 - 6:00 PDT

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Psychological intervention has been shown to reduce the postembolization pain during hepatic arterial chemoembolizatiom therapy. It is highly recommended as a complementary approach to pharmacological analgesia according to research published in the February 14, 2008 issue of the World Journal of Gastroenterology.

Unbearable pain is the most common complaint during and after transarterial embolization. Large doses of opioid analgesics are often required in most patients when the pain is too severe to endure. Because these medications have side effects and a few patients are not susceptive to sedative and analgesic medication, it would be useful to develop nonpharmacologic analgesia approaches to improving this painful experience.

In the study it was demonstrated that the psychological status of hepatic malignancy patient was abnormal and several symptoms were related to the pain intensity during the procedure. It was indication to psychological intervention.

When psychological intervention was performed initially, only some of patients described pain relief. Once the medication was administrated, the pain intensity decreased clearly. Therefore, psychological intervention can not be practiced as the only form of pain relief. However, because the pain management of patients who received psychological intervention & medication was obviously better than that of control group, the effect of psychological intervention can not be neglected.

"This study is a step forward in pain management of transarterial embolization therapy," says Dr. Wang, "Though it was not a large study with complex trials, it conclusively shows that psychological intervention is effective and provides clinicians a safe, inexpensive, and effective complementary approach to pharmacological analgesia.

After several years of study, it's wonderful to demonstrate that the nonpharmacologic analgesia effectively improve the patient's experience of pain during the transarterial embolization. It is good news for patients."

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Reference: Wang ZX, Liu SL, Sun CH, Wang Q. Psychological intervention reduces post- embolization pain during hepatic arterial chemoembolization therapy: A complementary approach to pharmacological analgesia. World J Gastroenterol 2008; 14(6): 931-935 http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/14/931.asp

Correspondence to: Dr. Zi-Xuan Wang, Department of Interventional Radiology, Qingdao Municipal Hospital,1 Jiao-Zhou Rd, Qingdao 266000, Shandong Province, China.

About World Journal of Gastroenterology

World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG), a leading international journal in gastroenterology and hepatology, has established a reputation for publishing first class research on esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, colorectal cancer, and H pylori infection for providing a forum for both clinicians and scientists. WJG has been indexed and abstracted in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch) and Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Index Medicus, MEDLINE and PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Abstracts Journals, Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CAB Abstracts and Global Health. ISI JCR 2003-2000 IF: 3.318, 2.532, 1.445 and 0.993. WJG is a weekly journal published by WJG Press. The publication dates are the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th day of every month. The WJG is supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30224801 and No. 30424812, and was founded with the name of China National Journal of New Gastroenterology on October 1, 1995, and renamed WJG on January 25, 1998.

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Source: Jing Zhu
World Journal of Gastroenterology

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