Central Pain in Patients with Multiple sclerosis
Open accessAbstract
Central pain (CP) is little recognized and diagnosed type of pain in multiple sclerosis. Objective: This second part of our work related to pain in multiple sclerosis is concentrated on occurrence of CP and defined its characteristics. Methods: Questionnaires on pain were sent to 307 patients with definitive multiple sclerosis diagnose. Patients admitting to CP were examined with aim to diagnose CP. The dates were statistically processed. Results: Out of 220 responders 92% reported pain during the course of their multiple sclerosis. CP was found in 57.72%, including 40.91% with central neuropathic extremity and trunk pain (CNEP), 5.91% with trigeminal neuralgia (TN), and 33.18% with Lhermitte‘s sign (LS). In 28.8% of all patients, CP was an initial multiple sclerosis symptom. The prevalence of CP does not increase with age, disease duration, or the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS). Lower extremities were the commonest location of CNEP (74.5%) and burning was the commonest painful sensation. Three and more concurrent unpleasant painful sensations experienced 68.9% of patients, which were in 46.7% located in the lower extremities. Three and more concurrent CP locations (including TN and LS) were reported by 89% of patients. Number of locations in CP increases significantly with age and EDSS, in contrast to group with nociceptive and peripheral neuropathic pain (n=113), where does not increase with age, EDSS and multiple sclerosis duration. The group with nociceptive and peripheral neuropathic pain featured significantly less patients with only one pain location (p=0.0269) and only one pain quality. In contrast to the other group, In CP increases significantly the number of patients with increase the number of concurrent pain qualities (p<0.0001). Conclusion: CP is not only a frequent complaint among persons with multiple sclerosis, but is a distinctive type of pain requiring special attention and their identification remains still the major challenge.
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Sensitivity analysis removing individual outliers did not affect the overall conclusions for overall or possible neuropathic pain, yielding 18.8% (95% CI 15.0-22.7) and 17.6% (95% CI 13.2-22.0), indicating robustness of the results.
“The sensitivity analysis did not affect the overall conclusions of estimated prevalences after removing individual outliers (Feketová et al. 2017; Jallouli, Ghroubi, Ben Dhia, et al. 2025; Moisset et al. 2013), for either overall (18.8% [95% CI: 15.0; 22.7]) or possible (17.6% [95% CI: 13.2; 22.0]) neuropathic pain, indicating robustness of the results.”
From The Prevalence of Neuropathic Pain in Multiple Sclerosis—A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis Using the <scp>NeuPSIG</scp> Algorithm (2026) · cites this paper as Feketová et al. 2017
The Patients and Methods section (p. 2) describes analyses of this paper’s patient data, while the Prevalence of central pain section (p. 5) discusses its prevalence estimates. Searches for sensitivity analysis, removal of outliers, and the quoted prevalence estimates found no passage addressing whether removing this study changed the citing paper’s pooled results. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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Result
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- Authors
- S, F., I, W., P, V., & J, M.
- Venue
- Journal of Multiple Sclerosis
- Publisher
- OMICS Publishing Group
- Published
- 2017
- Volume
- 04
- Issue
- 03
- ISSN
- 2376-0389 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2765279215
- Cited by
- 8
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 2
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Multiple Sclerosis (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pathology and Forensic Medicine › Multiple Sclerosis Research Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Pain Mechanisms and Treatments
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine › Pain Management and Treatment
- Keywords
- central pain, multiple sclerosis, trigeminal neuralgia, Lhermitte's sign, pain prevalence, pain quality, pain localization, Expanded Disability Status Scale, disease duration, neuropathic pain, nociceptive pain
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