Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Clinical Trials 2023

What Are Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Clinical Trials?

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome or CRPS is a condition with prolonged, excess, and out-of-proportion pain and inflammation in an arm or leg. It is developed after surgery, stroke, heart attack, injury, or fracture. Depending on how long a patient suffers from CRPS, it can be divided into three stages acute, subacute, and chronic.

CRPS is a rare medical condition affecting an average of 5.5 people out of every 100,000 per year. People of any age and biological sex can develop complex regional pain syndrome, but it is more common in biological women, especially those aged 40 and around. CRPS is rare in children and the elderly. While treatment for complex regional pain syndrome is possible, especially when started early, its causes are not clearly understood.

Through CRPS clinical trials, medical and health professionals and researchers seek to understand the possible triggers of the condition. Understanding the immune system activation during nerve injury and minimizing the chances of disability in patients of CRPS are also common goals of complex regional pain syndrome clinical trials.

Why Is Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Being Studied Through Clinical Trials?

While complex regional pain syndrome is treatable when diagnosed and addressed early, it can lead to severe symptoms, including disability. Prolonged inflammation and pain in a limb can weaken it, limiting the patient’s mobility, and often leading to tissue wasting. Tissue wasting or atrophy is the deterioration of muscles, bones, and skin when it is not moved enough.

Untreated CRPS significantly impacts a patient’s physical, mental, and quality of life. Therefore, CRPS clinical trials are important for scientists and health professionals to diagnose the condition quickly and more effectively. Clinical trials on complex regional pain syndrome also lead to discoveries of better methods of limiting symptoms and preventing disability.

What Are the Types of Treatments Available for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome?

Early diagnosis is essential for the successful treatment of CRPS. While the treatment plan for each patient is tailored according to their age, lifestyle, and origin of pain, it commonly involves a combination of medication and therapies.

Medications most often prescribed for CRPS treatment include bone-loss, nerve-blocking, high blood pressure medications, OTC pain relievers, anticonvulsants, antidepressants, and corticosteroids. Therapies for CRPS include physical, topical analgesics, heat, biofeedback, stimulation of the spinal cord, and acupuncture.

What Are Some Recent Breakthrough Clinical Trials for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome?

2023: West Virginia School of Medicine, USA, ran CRPS clinical trial to support the idea of mechanism-based treatment rather than symptom-based treatment in patients suffering from the condition. The goal of the clinical trial was to guide the treatment in a more effective and result-oriented way by incorporating mechanism-based drugs. The trial followed the usual practice of tailored treatment plans for the participants and found favorable results for its hypothesis.

2023: A clinical trial by Showa University School of Medicine, Japan, tested the prospect of senso-immonulogic among CRPS patients. The study involved CRPS patients with bone atrophy and utilized enhanced osteoclast differentiation and activation to reverse the damage. While the trials did not produce sufficient results to propose the new method as a cure for bone atrophy, it succeeded in decreasing the bone destruction rate.