Center for Innovation in Pain Care News

“Reduction of Opioid Requirement Associated with Auriculo-Nerve Stimulation Following Open Surgery” has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse for four years starting August 1, 2022.

The study, presented at the European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care meeting in Milan, Italy, June 4-6, showed that aromatherapy reduced post-surgical opioid use by half in hip replacement patients who were anxious before surgery.

Trent D. Emerick, MD, MBA, FASA, and Ajay D. Wasan, MD, MSc, were named in the specialty of pain medicine in Pittsburgh Magazine’s 2022 “Top Doctors” list, an annually published selection of the region’s top physicians.

The University of Pittsburgh and the Utah corporation nCAP Medical, a company involved in the development of pain relief patches, signed a contract to conduct “A Pilot Study Investigating the nCAP NeuroCuple in Subjects Undergoing Primary Hip Replacement Surgery: A Prospective, Randomized, Open Label Trial” with Jacques E. Chelly, MD, PhD, MBA, as the principal investigator.

Principal Investigator Jacques E. Chelly, MD, PhD, MBA, will receive funding to establish a Center of Excellence with Heron Therapeutics. This multidisciplinary center will be dedicated to education and research related to perioperative pain management with a special focus on non-opioid approaches and minimization of opioid prescription.

“Hierarchical Clustering by Patient-Reported Pain Distribution Alone Identifies Distinct Chronic Pain Subgroups Differing by Pain Intensity, Quality, and Clinical Outcomes” was recently published in PLoS One and featured in several news publications.

Shiv K. Goel, MD, who was awarded a $79,825 grant from the Shadyside foundation for his study entitled “Music Therapy for the Treatment of Perioperative Anxiety and Pain.”

The NIH Heal Initiative website featured the project “Proof of concept study to treat negative affect in chronic low back pain” led by Ajay D. Wasan, MD, MSc, as part of the Back Pain Consortium Research Program.

Benedict Alter, MD, PhD, who has been awarded a UPMC Competitive Medical Research Fund grant for his project “Integrating Brain and Behavioral Measures of Endogenous Analgesia to Personalize Treatment in Chronic Pain Management” to start on July 1, 2021.

Dr. Wasan was named in the specialty of pain medicine.