Pain Paid Clinical Trials in Maryland

This study is not a treatment protocol and no experimental treatments are involved. Study participants may be seen as needed for clinical, translational and basic research studies, or as medically indicated. Subjects will receive their general medical care outside the NIH and will be seen at our clinic or at CNHS with varying frequency. Subjects may be seen for multiple visits. Subjects may be asked to return for additional testing as needed. Clinical care for patients with sickle cell disease will be provided as appropriate through the Sickle Cell Clinic and the inpatient clinical center. Read Less

This study will examine the safety of giving the experimental drug, resiniferatoxin (RTX), to treat severe pain in patients with advanced cancer. RTX is a chemical extracted from a cactus-like plant. It is similar to capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot pepper. RTX has relieved pain and reduced the need for pain medication in several animal experiments. It works by destroying nerves that transmit pain information. People at least 18 years of age with severe pain from advanced cancer at or below the level of the chest that cannot be controlled with standard treatments may be eligible for this study. Participants undergo the following procedures: Pretreatment Visit Before beginning treatment with RTX, patients give a medical history and undergo a physical examination that includes: Electrocardiogram (EKG) Blood draw Urinalysis Neurological examinations Peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) Eye examination MRI Urology assessment Pregnancy test, when appropriate Questionnaires to collect information on health, personality, mood, pain levels and symptoms. 2-Day Hospitalization Patients are hospitalized for 2 days for RTX injection and monitoring, as follows: RTX injection: RTX is injected in the operating room under general anesthesia. It is given through a catheter placed in the patient s spine. The catheter is also used to obtain samples of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) the clear fluid that bathes the spinal cord. The fluid is examined to assess drug effects and side effects, chemical changes in the content of the CSF associated with RTX, and how RTX is handled by the body. Post-injection monitoring, including: Surveys about symptoms such as pain or weakness Neurological examinations Blood and CSF sampling EKG AEs Outpatient followup Vitals Blood draw, Urinalysis, neurological and sensory testing, EKG on days 7, 14 and 30 after the injection MRI scans of the head and back, Urology assessment and PEFR on day 15 after the injection Eye examination Follow-up phone calls monthly for 6 months Read Less

Background: Negative emotional states can affect a person s behavior as they make decisions. For example, hunger may make people more impatient; they may then make riskier choices. Other negative emotional states that can change behavior include stress, pain, and sadness. By learning more about how emotions affect thinking and behavior in healthy people, researchers hope to better understand how to identify and treat people with mental disorders. Objective: To learn how negative emotions affect the brain and decision-making behavior. Eligibility: Healthy people aged 18 to 55 years. Design: Participants will have 3 clinic visits in 3 weeks. Participants will fill out questionnaires. They will be asked about their personal history, their personality, and state of mind. For 2 visits, participants will be assigned to different groups. Each group will experience 1 type of emotional stressor: Some participants will watch a video. Some will have to do arithmetic problems. Some will have heat applied to an arm or leg. Some will experience cold by immersing their hand in ice water. For a snack craving test, some will be tempted by food after a 4-hour fast. During these tests, participants will have sensors attached to their bodies. They will be videotaped. Saliva samples will be collected. After the stressors, participants will do tasks on a computer. They will need to make choices. Some participants will perform these decision-making tasks while lying in a brain scanner for functional magnetic resonance imaging. The brain scan involves lying on a table that slides into a cylinder that takes images of the brain. Read Less

MR-107A-02 is being studied to investigate its efficacy and safety for treatment of acute pain after bunionectomy. Read Less

Cryotherapy has been used to enhance recovery after orthopaedic surgery. Many devices are available but few can guarantee a temperature regulation during a prolonged time and therefore have been criticized. The arrival of new advanced cryotherapy devices made it possible to test the effect of prolonged cooling on rehabilitation after arthroscopic orthopaedic procedures. Read Less

This study will evaluate de-identified (anonymous) data in subject medical charts to review the clinical outcomes of various treatment approaches in the treatment of chronic pain. Read Less

This is a prospective, sham-controlled, randomized, single-blinded, multi-center study comparing two different modes of the NexWave device, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) and interferential current (IFC), with an identical non-functioning NexWave sham device or self-defined standard of care for improvement of pain intensity of non-specific CLBP. Read Less

This study will use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound images to study how muscles, tendons, and bones work together to cause motion. The procedure is one of several tools being developed to characterize normal and impaired musculoskeletal function, with the goal of developing improved methods of diagnosis and treatment of movement disorders. Healthy normal volunteers must be age 5 to unlimited, with or without joint impairment, may be eligible for this study. Volunteers with joint impairment may not have serious injury to the joint being studied, previous surgery on the joint being studied, or extreme pain at the joint being studied. MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to create images of the inside of the body. The subject lies on a long narrow couch inside a metal cylinder (the scanner) for up to 3 hours while the scanner gathers data. Earplugs are worn to muffle loud noises caused by electrical switching of radiofrequency circuits used in the scanning process. A special pad or tube may be placed over or around the region being scanned to improve the quality of the data. The subject will be asked to repeatedly move a specific joint, such as the knee, for brief periods, usually less than 5 minutes. The subject can communicate via intercom with the person performing the study at all times during the procedure, and may request to stop the study at any time. ... Read Less

This project examines, in chronic pain, the mechanisms of immersive virtual reality compared to the mechanisms of placebo hypoalgesia. The potential of developing new non-pharmacological premises for low-risk interventions for pain management is high. Read Less

Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST) is a novel investigative technique used in other pain conditions to evaluate patterns of chronic pain, and in this study will be used to elucidate pain patterns in patients with Chronic Pancreatitis (CP). QST uses a specific series of standardized stimulations to map the pain system. QST has the potential to change and improve the treatment paradigm for patients with CP and may eventually be able to predict response to invasive CP therapies. Read Less

Abdominal pain in chronic pancreatitis (CP) affects up to 90% of patients during the course of their disease, and response to currently available therapies is suboptimal and unpredictable. The proposed clinical trial will evaluate the predictive capability of Pancreatic Quantitative Sensory Testing (P-QST) - a novel assessment of neurosensory phenotyping- for improvement in pain in patients with CP who are undergoing medically-indicated invasive treatment with endoscopic therapy or surgery. Read Less

The opioid epidemic is a considerable problem in the United States, and prescription opioids significantly contribute to the epidemic. Head and neck cancer (HNC) patients are inherently at increased risk for opioid dependence as surgical treatment can cause significant pain and up to 50% of patients also suffer from psychiatric comorbidities. Novel methods are needed to decrease opioid consumption following HNC surgeries to limit the risk of chronic opioid dependence in these patients. Conditioning therapy with placebo aims to elicit a classically conditioned response to an inactive medication through consistent pairing of the medication with a neutral stimulus (i.e. an odor) and has been shown to be effective for decreasing the amount of active drug require for certain clinical responses, including for acute pain. However, studies have not been completed for the treatment of acute pain in the inpatient post-operative setting. The overall goal of this pilot study is to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of conditioned open-label placebo (COLP) as an adjunct for post-operative pain management in complex head and neck cancer patients. This randomized, controlled, open-label trial will specifically compare post-operative opioid consumption and pain scales between patients receiving multimodal analgesia along with conditioned open-label placebo (COLP group) to those receiving multimodal analgesia, alone (Treatment as usual group). Findings from this study will determine the efficacy of COLP as an innovative approach to decrease opioid consumption and improve pain control in head and neck cancer patients and will provide rationale for development of future large scale trials. Read Less