Observational studyBMC musculoskeletal disorders2024
Current trends in the medical treatment of neuropathic low back pain: a Swedish registry-based study of 1.7 million people.
Observational study in BMC musculoskeletal disorders, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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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
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Identifying predictors of neuropathic pain medication prescribing, adherence, and discontinuation: a systematic review and meta-analysis.British journal of anaesthesia · 2026Pooled it
- Use of prescribed analgesics before and after a standardised chiropractic care programme among patients with lumbar spinal stenosis: a nationwide cohort study.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2026Article
- Global, regional, and national burden of low back pain in postmenopausal women from 1990 to 2021: a comprehensive analysis using data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2025Article
- Mixed pain: clinical practice recommendations.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundLow back pain, a common problem worldwide, causes more global disability than any other condition and is associated with high costs to society. This observational registry-based study describes the current trends in the medical treatment of neuropathic low back pain in the Swedish region of Västra Götaland, which has a population of 1.7 million. The study aims to; (1) identify the prevalence of neuropathic low back pain within the study population; (2) to explore the patterns of medical treatment utilization, including the prevalence and distribution of opioids (OG) and analgesics specified for neuropathic low back pain (NG) and (3) to evaluate the long-term trends and changes in medical treatment practice for neuropathic low back pain over the study period.
methodsThis study includes a descriptive analysis of aggregated data extracted from the Swedish primary care registry VEGA and the pharmaceutical prescription registry Digitalis between the years 2017 and 2021. The data were stratified by year, age, gender, pharmaceutical code (ATC), and sub-diagnoses and presented as the prevalence of unique patients retrieving prescribed medication within six months before or after a registered diagnosis of neuropathic low back pain. The pharmaceutical codes were furthermore grouped into two groups depending on their mechanism of action; opioid group (OG) and neuropathic group (NG).
resultsIn all four diagnosis groups, more patients used opioid analgesics than neuropathic analgesics. The greatest difference between the opioid group and neuropathic group was in the lumbar spinal stenosis diagnosis group (67.1% vs. 40.6%), followed by the lumbar root canal stenosis diagnosis (65.9% vs. 44.2%), the nerve root and plexus compressions in intervertebral disc disorders diagnosis (57.5% vs. 40.8%), and lumbago with sciatica diagnosis (38.4% vs. 22.7%).
conclusionsThe trends suggest a general increase in the prescription rate and therefore patients' use of neuropathic analgesics for neuropathic pain associated with the studied diagnoses. However, opioid treatment remains the most common. The results indicate that the treatment for neuropathic low back pain needs to be improved.
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