Neck pain is a common musculoskeletal condition, which causes substantial medical cost. In Korea, prevalence of neck pain in community based population, especially in elderly subjects, has scarcely been reported. We evaluated the prevalence, the severity and the risk factors of neck pain in elderly Korean community residents. Data for neck pain were collected for 1,655 subjects from a rural farming community. The point, 6-months and cumulative lifetime prevalence of neck pain was obtained in addition to the measurement of the severity of neck pain. The mean age of the study subjects was 61 yr and 57% were females. The lifetime prevalence of neck pain was 20.8% with women having a higher prevalence. The prevalence did not increase with age, and the majority of individuals had low-intensity/low-disability pain. Subjects with neck pain had a significantly worse SF-12 score in all domains except for mental health. The prevalence of neck pain was significantly associated with female gender, obesity and smoking. This is the first large-scale Korean study estimating the prevalence of neck pain in elderly population. Although the majority of individuals had low-intensity/low-disability pain, subjects with neck pain had a significantly worse SF-12 score indicating that neck pain has significant health impact.

Objective. Although recent imaging studies of fibromyalgia (FM) have converged on a dysfunction of central pain processing as the primary pathophysiologic cause of the disorder, microstructural changes of the white matter (WM) suggestive of abnormalities in the anatomic connectivity of the brain have not been extensively examined. The aim of this study was to investigate WM integrity and its possible relationship to pain symptoms in women with FM.Methods. Nineteen FM patients and 21 age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy control subjects were included in the study and underwent diffusion-weighted imaging. Group differences in WM integrity, which were assessed via fractional anisotropy (FA), was investigated by applying tract-based spatial statistics.Results. As compared with the healthy control group, the FM group showed a single cluster with lower FA in the left body of the corpus callosum, which was found to be connected to the bilateral sensorimotor cortices (P < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons). Furthermore, FA values in the cluster were negatively associated with sensory pain, as measured by the ShortForm McGill Pain Questionnaire, as well as with the relative magnitude of sensory pain versus affective pain (calculated by dividing the sensory score by the affective score).Conclusion. Findings of the current study demonstrated that patients with FM had disrupted WM microstructure in the body of the corpus callosum, which was associated with clinical pain intensity. Our results suggest that abnormal interhemispheric transfer might contribute to the heightened pain perception. Our findings further strengthen the hypothesis of centrally augmented pain processing in patients with FM.

Background To investigate the frequency of pain among subjects with advanced radiographic knee osteoarthritis (OA) defined as Kellgren–Lawrence (KL) grade 4 and clinical features associated with pain. Methods Subjects from the Hallym Aging Study (HAS), the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES), and the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI) were included. Participants were asked knee-specific questions regarding the presence of knee pain. Clinical characteristics associated with the presence of pain were evaluated with multivariable logistic regression analysis. Results The study population consisted of 504, 10,152 and 4796 subjects from HAS, KNHANES, and OAI, respectively. KL grade 4 OA was identified in 9.3, 7.6, and 11.5% of subjects, while pain was absent in 23.5, 31.2, and 5.9% of subjects in KL grade 4 knee OA, respectively. After multivariable analysis, female gender showed a significant association with pain in the KNHANES group, while in the OAI group, younger age did. Advanced knee OA patients without pain did not differ from non-OA subjects in most items of SF-12 in both Korean and OAI subjects. Total WOMAC score was not significantly different between non-OA and advanced knee OA subjects without pain in the OAI. Conclusions Our study showed that a considerable number of subjects with KL grade 4 OA did not report pain. In patients whose pain arises from causes other than structural damage of the joint, therapeutic decision based on knee X-ray would lead to suboptimal result. In addition, treatment options focusing solely on cartilage engineering, should be viewed with caution.

The discordance between the ESR-based and CRP-based DAS28 could affect clinical treatment decisions for patients with RA.