ArticlePain2018
Neuroinflammation of the spinal cord and nerve roots in chronic radicular pain patients.
Article in Pain, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 76 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
76 citing papers in PubMed, 151 citations in OpenAlex.
- Trial
- Glial cells in neuropathic pain.Physiological reviews · 2026Review
- Towards a Whole-Body Assessment of Pain Using the 18 kDa Translocator Protein (TSPO) as a Broad-Spectrum Imaging Marker of Inflammation.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Review
- Differential target multiplexed SCS (DTM SCS): a rational hypothesis.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2026Review
- The analgesic effect of electroacupuncture in alleviating paclitaxel-induced peripheral neuropathic pain and its possible mechanism relates to TLR4/P2X7-NLRP3 signaling pathway.Purinergic signalling · 2026Article
- Ultrasound-guided selective nerve root blocks and caudal epidural injection in the management of lumbar radicular syndrome: a case series with one-year follow-up.Journal of ultrasound · 2026Article
- Neuroinflammatory Biomarkers in Chronic Low Back Pain: Mechanisms, Clinical Evidence, and Translational Challenges.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- Neuro-immune contributors to persistent musculoskeletal pain: from mechanisms to clinical assessment and management.Musculoskeletal science & practice · 2026Review
- Article
- Brain inflammation and its predictive value for post-operative pain in total knee arthroplasty patients.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2025Article
- Trigeminal nerve microstructure is linked with neuroinflammation and brainstem activity in migraine.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2025Article
- Neuroinflammation at the Neuroforamina and Spinal Cord in Patients with Painful Cervical Radiculopathy and Pain-Free Participants: An [Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Added value of 18Fluorine-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) PET/MRI for evaluation of failed back surgery syndrome: comparison with non-contrast MRI.Japanese journal of radiology · 2025Article
- Pathophysiology-Directed Engineering of a Combination Nanoanalgesic for Neuropathic Pain.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Quantification of neuroinflammation in spinal cord and neuroforamina of patients with painful cervical radiculopathy using [Frontiers in nuclear medicine · 2025Article
- Treatment of occult radiculopathy in complex regional pain syndrome by anterior cervical discectomy and fusion following localization by [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose radioligand and PET/MRI: illustrative case.Journal of neurosurgery. Case lessons · 2024Article
- Review
- Transforaminal Steroid Injection After Dorsal Root Ganglion Pulsed Radiofrequency (DRG-PRF): Impact on Pain Intensity and Disability.Pain and therapy · 2024Article
- Systemic low-grade C-reactive protein is associated with proximal symptom spread in carpal tunnel syndrome.Pain reports · 2024Article
- Preliminary study on the dynamic positron emission tomography imaging withNeurogastroenterology and motility · 2024Article
16 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
15 authors at 6 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Numerous preclinical studies support the role of spinal neuroimmune activation in the pathogenesis of chronic pain, and targeting glia (eg, microglia/astrocyte)- or macrophage-mediated neuroinflammatory responses effectively prevents or reverses the establishment of persistent nocifensive behaviors in laboratory animals. However, thus far, the translation of those findings into novel treatments for clinical use has been hindered by the scarcity of data supporting the role of neuroinflammation in human pain. Here, we show that patients suffering from a common chronic pain disorder (lumbar radiculopathy), compared with healthy volunteers, exhibit elevated levels of the neuroinflammation marker 18 kDa translocator protein, in both the neuroforamina (containing dorsal root ganglion and nerve roots) and spinal cord. These elevations demonstrated a pattern of spatial specificity correlating with the patients' clinical presentation, as they were observed in the neuroforamen ipsilateral to the symptomatic leg (compared with both contralateral neuroforamen in the same patients as well as to healthy controls) and in the most caudal spinal cord segments, which are known to process sensory information from the lumbosacral nerve roots affected in these patients (compared with more superior segments). Furthermore, the neuroforaminal translocator protein signal was associated with responses to fluoroscopy-guided epidural steroid injections, supporting its role as an imaging marker of neuroinflammation, and highlighting the clinical significance of these observations. These results implicate immunoactivation at multiple levels of the nervous system as a potentially important and clinically relevant mechanism in human radicular pain, and suggest that therapies targeting immune cell activation may be beneficial for chronic pain patients.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.