SynthesisPain medicine (Malden, Mass.)2025
Quantifying the impact of concurrent analgesic use in interventional pain trials: a meta-epidemiologic study.
Synthesis in Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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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
2 citing papers in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
importanceThe modest effect sizes of most pain treatments make it essential that randomized controlled trials (RCTs) use methods that clearly define treatment effects of interest and consider the role of concurrent treatments.
objectiveThis study aims to determine how frequently concurrent analgesic use is reported in interventional pain RCTs and how accounting for analgesic use can affect estimates of pain intensity outcomes.
designMeta-epidemiologic study.
methodsWe conducted a study of concurrent analgesic use among RCTs from a recent systematic review of non-surgical interventional pain treatments (n = 37). We calculated the prevalence of methods used to report concurrent analgesic use. We performed meta-analyses to compare treatment effects on pain intensity with vs without accounting for concurrent analgesic use via a novel quantitative composite outcome, the "QPAC1.5."
resultsAbout half of interventional pain RCTs reported concurrent analgesic use, but only one directly accounted for concurrent analgesic use in their pain intensity outcome. Analyses accounting for concurrent analgesics using the QPAC1.5 substantially increased the estimated treatment effect of interventions on pain intensity by an average of -0.45 numeric rating scale points (95% CI -0.76 to -0.14; P < 0.001), as compared to analyses that did not adjust for analgesic use. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Concurrent analgesic use is sometimes reported in interventional pain RCTs, but rarely accounted for when examining treatment effects on pain intensity. Accounting for concurrent analgesic use may mitigate the effects of that use and substantially impact estimated treatment effect sizes.
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