The following is the summary of “Pain Quality After Pediatric Pectus Excavatum Repair”  published in the December 2022 issue of Pain Management by Manworren, et al.

In multimodal postoperative analgesic techniques, neuropathic pain medicines are often used, but the quality of perioperative pain is rarely evaluated. The goal of this research was to use the Adolescent Pediatric Pain Tool to describe the pain experienced by adolescents following thoracoscopic pectus excavatum correction (Nuss surgery). To see if neuropathic pain matches the reported pain quality descriptors, researchers conducted this prospective descriptive longitudinal study.

A convenience sample of 23 adolescents aged 2–17-year-olds from a single urban, university–affiliated, nonprofit children’s hospital agreed to self–report pain using the Adolescent Pediatric Pain Tool before, during, and up to 14 months following a Nuss surgery. Pain reports were broken down visually to determine factors like intensity, location, emotion, evaluation, sensory, and temporal aspects. Pain after surgery improved over time in terms of quality, intensity, locations, and area. Descriptors of neuropathic sensory and temporal pain quality were more common 2–6 weeks after surgery and predominated 2–4 months after surgery, as shown by a word cloud analysis of patient reports. 

A lack of consistency between pain quality, severity, and surface area was depicted using dot matrix charts. Valid, reliable, and age-appropriate measures of pain should be used. The use of visual analytics to display pain quality at discrete times and over time has the potential to aid in directing the management of postoperative pain.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1524904222001308