Research

GASTROENTEROLOGY

Chronic Pancreatitis (PI: Evans Phillips)
Mobile technology provides an opportunity to test Painimation, a graphical-image and animation-based patient-reported outcomes tool to assess pain location, quality, and intensity in this patient population. The aims of the study are to determine if Painimation can differentiate chronic pancreatitis pain from chronic somatic pain and determine whether the characteristics of pain described in Painimation associate with quantitative sensory testing phenotypes.

METHODS. Participants with painful CP and control patients with history of chronic non-abdominal somatic pain were enrolled. All participants completed Painimation – an electronic, animation-based PRO tool to assess pain location, quality, and intensity among adults with chronic pain – on a mobile tablet, as well as a paper version of the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS). All participants underwent P-QST testing for nociceptive phenotyping. Painimation data was compared between patients with CP and controls. P-QST phenotypes were compared between CP and controls. Ttests, Chi square and fishers excat test were use to test the association between Painimation responses, P-QST phenotypes, and PCS scores.

RESULTS. A total of 34 CP patients (mean age 51.9, 35% male) and 22 control patients (mean age 50.5, 64% male) were enrolled. Patients with CP were significantly more likely than controls to choose a “stabbing” painimation (50% vs 18.1%, p=0.02). No significant differences were seen between CP patients and controls for choice of other painimations (Table 1). Hyperalgesia was seen more frequently in patients with CP than controls (61.8% vs 22.7%) (p=0.004), though its presence was not associated with significantly higher PCS score. Among painimation selections by all patients, the choice of burning descriptor was associated with a significantly higher PCS score.

Chronic Pancreatitis
Dr. Anna Evans Phillips | evansac3@upmc.edu