CMT and pain: correlations with neurophysiological, clinical, and disability fin

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Neurol Sci. 2008 Jun;29(3):193-194.

Charcot-Marie-Tooth and pain: correlations with neurophysiological,

clinical, and disability findings.

Padua L, Cavallaro T, Pareyson D, Quattrone A, Vita G, Schenone A;

the Italian CMT QoL Study Group.

Institute of Neurology, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and

Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi, Rome, Italy

Pain is not considered a relevant symptom in Charcot-Marie-Tooth

(CMT) patients and no studies have comprehensively assessed it. We

performed a multidimensional assessment in 211 consecutive CMT

patients to evaluate the clinical features, quality of life (QoL) and

disability.

For QoL we used the SF-36, which comprises one domain called " Bodily

Pain " (BP), which is a generic measure of intensity of pain. Results

showed that pain is a relevant symptom related to gender, CMT

subtypes, clinical picture, disability, and mildly to

neurophysiological impairment.

In our study the importance of pain was an occasional finding.

Because of the study design we are not able to ascertain if pain is

primarily due to the neuropathy or if it is due to the

muscoloskeletal deformities arising as a consequence of the

neuropathy.

Our study underlined that pain should be considered as a relevant

symptom in CMT patients and further studies should be performed.