Screening and Impact of Neuropathic Pain in Young Individuals With Sickle Cell Disease

OBJECTIVE: To assess the frequency of neuropathic pain (NP) and its impact in young patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). METHODS: We used the ID-Pain (ID-P) questionnaire and a bedside clinical sensory testing (CST) as screening tools for NP and performed sensory nerve conduction study (SNCS) for all the participants. The impact of pain was assessed using Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) questionnaires and Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) SCD module. RESULTS: The mean age was 12.4 years. The ID-P questionnaire revealed that 20.5% of patients likely had NP, while 10 (34%) of the participants had abnormal CST, and only two patients (4.5%) had abnormal SNCS. On the PROMIS pain scores, the mean pain intensity score was 7.9 ± 2.0. Pain interference was the most affected domain in both patients and parent proxy reports (mean ± SD T-score 63.4 ± 6.6 and 65.2 ± 6.6, respectively) which was worse than other domains including pain quality-sensory and affective, and pain behavior (median T-scores of 47.8, 63.0, and 56.2, respectively). The mean global health-related quality of life (HRQoL) score of the children was 50.3 ± 12.1 indicating poor quality of life. CONCLUSION: We report the utility of simple tools like ID-P questionnaire and CST for screening of NP in young individuals with SCD.