Dr. John Dombrowski, director of the Washington (D.C.) Pain Center and head of the American Society of Anesthesiologists communications committee, commented that the percentage of concurrent fibromyalgia in the study seems high, "but since this is a tertiary setting they are probably seeing the worst of the worse patients."
"While this may be a selected population, the results are still interesting," he said. "Obviously, this subset of patients has issues. They have a predilection for more central pain, and many will need multimodal therapy. Pain patients are challenging, and fibromyalgia makes them even more challenging. This study underlines the fact that we cannot rely on interventional treatments alone."
Dr. Brummett said that he had no relevant disclosures.