Dysesthetic Pain Syndrome in Spinal Cord Injury Patients

Lee, Zee Ihn; Lee, Yang Soo; Kim, Poong Taek; Park, Hyun

Abstract

Dysesthetic pain syndrome is a common disabling painful sequelae of spinal cord injury patients. The purposes of this study were to gather the general informations of pain in spinal cord injury patients and to investigate the correlation between the various factors affecting pain severity. Twenty-seven spinal cord injury patients with dysesthetic pain were evaluated by medical histories, physical and neurological examinations. The pain intensity was measured by a visual analogue scale. Twenty-one subjects were males and six were females. The mean age of patients was 35.1 years. The patients were classified into five pain categories : diffuse pain, segmental pain, root pain, visceral pain, and non-neurogenic pain. Nineteen patients (70.4%) were categorized into diffuse pain group, six patients (22.2%) into both diffuse and segmental pain group, two patients (7.4%) into root pain group and five patients (18.5%) into perianal pain group. According to this study, the only significant factor affecting the severity of dysesthetic pain in spinal cord injury patients was the severity of spinal cord injury. Pain appeared earlier and more intensely in the complete spinal cord injury patients. There was no correlation between the severity of pain and the level of lesion, age, or the posterior tibial nerve SEP response.