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Observational Study
. 2018 Feb;70(2):197-204.
doi: 10.1002/acr.23266.

Association Between Pain Sensitization and Disease Activity in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Cross-Sectional Study

Yvonne C Lee  1 , Clifton O Bingham 3rd  2 , Robert R Edwards  1 , Wendy Marder  3 , Kristine Phillips  3 , Marcy B Bolster  4 , Daniel J Clauw  3 , Larry W Moreland  5 , Bing Lu  1 , Alyssa Wohlfahrt  1 , Zhi Zhang  1 , Tuhina Neogi  6
Affiliations
Observational Study

Association Between Pain Sensitization and Disease Activity in Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Cross-Sectional Study

Yvonne C Lee et al. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2018 Feb.

Erratum in

  • Erratum.
    [No authors listed] [No authors listed] Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2020 Apr;72(4):599. doi: 10.1002/acr.24187. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken). 2020. PMID: 32220143 No abstract available.

Abstract

Objective: Pain sensitization may contribute to pain severity in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), impacting disease activity assessment. We examined whether pain processing mechanisms were associated with disease activity among RA patients with active disease.

Methods: The study included 139 subjects enrolled in the Central Pain in Rheumatoid Arthritis cohort. Subjects underwent quantitative sensory testing (QST), including assessment of pressure pain thresholds (PPTs) at multiple sites, conditioned pain modulation, and temporal summation. RA disease activity was assessed using the Clinical Disease Activity Index (CDAI) and its components. We examined cross-sectional associations between QST measures and disease activity using linear regression.

Results: Low PPTs (high pain sensitization) at all sites were associated with high CDAI scores (P ≤ 0.03) and tender joint counts (P ≤ 0.002). Associations between PPTs and patient global assessments were also seen at most sites. High temporal summation at the forearm (also reflecting high pain sensitization) was significantly associated with high CDAI scores (P = 0.02), patient global assessment scores (P = 0.0006), evaluator global assessment scores (P = 0.01), and tender joint counts (P = 0.02). Conversely, conditioned pain modulation (a measure of descending inhibitory pain pathways) was associated only with tender joint count (P = 0.03).

Conclusion: High pain sensitization is associated with elevations in disease activity measures. Longitudinal studies are underway to elucidate the cause-effect relationships between pain sensitization and inflammatory disease activity in RA.

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Conflict of interest statement

COMPETING INTERESTS

Dr. Lee reports a research grant from Pfizer and stock in Express Scripts. Dr. Bolster reports receiving research funding from Eli Lilly. Dr. Clauw has received consulting fees from Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Nuvo, Cerephex, Tonix, Abbott, Forest Labs, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Purdue Pharma, Sammumed, Zynerba, Astellas Pharma, Williams & Connolly LLP and Therevance. He has also received research support from Pfizer, Cypress Biosciences, Forest, Merck, Nuvo and Cerephex.

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