A Closer Look at Localized and Distant Pressure Pain Hypersensitivity in People With Lower Extremity Overuse Soft-Tissue Painful Conditions: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The nociceptive pain processing of soft-tissue overuse conditions is under debate because no consensus currently exists. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to compare pressure pain thresholds (PPTs) in symptomatic and distant pain-free areas in 2 groups: participants with symptomatic lower extremity overuse soft-tissue conditions and controls who were pain free. METHODS: Five databases were searched from inception to December 1, 2021, for case-control studies comparing PPTs between individuals presenting with symptomatic lower extremity tendinopathy/overuse injury and controls who were pain free. Data extraction included population, diagnosis, sample size, outcome, type of algometer, and results. The methodological quality (Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale) and evidence level (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) were assessed. Meta-analyses of symptomatic, segmental related, and distant pain-free areas were compared. RESULTS: After screening 730 titles and abstracts, a total of 19 studies evaluating lower extremity overuse conditions (Achilles or patellar tendinopathy, greater trochanteric pain syndrome, plantar fasciitis, and iliotibial band syndrome) were included. The methodological quality ranged from fair (32%) to good (68%). Participants with lower extremity overuse injury had lower PPTs in both the painful and nonpainful areas, mirrored test-site, compared with controls (affected side: mean difference [MD] = -262.92 kPa, 95% CI = 323.78 to -202.05 kPa; nonaffected side: MD = -216.47 kPa, 95% CI = -304.99 to -127.95 kPa). Furthermore, people with plantar fasciitis showed reduced PPTs in the affected and nonaffected sides at segmental-related (MD = -176.39 kPa, 95% CI = -306.11 to -46.68 kPa) and distant pain-free (MD = -97.27 kPa, 95% CI = 133.21 to -61.33 kPa) areas compared with controls. CONCLUSION: Low- to moderate-quality evidence suggests a reduction of PPTs at the symptomatic area and a contralateral/mirror side in lower extremity tendinopathies and overuse conditions compared with pain-free controls, particularly in plantar fasciitis and greater trochanteric pain syndrome. Participants with plantar fasciitis showed a reduction of PPTs on the affected and non-affected sides at a segmental-related area (very low-quality evidence) and at a remote asymptomatic area (moderate-quality evidence). IMPACT: Some overuse peripheral pain conditions may be more associated with pressure pain sensitivity than others. Accordingly, examination and identification of conditions more peripherally, centrally, or mixed mediated could potentially lead to more specific and different treatment strategies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".