{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,18]],"date-time":"2026-08-18T02:32:42Z","timestamp":1787020362898,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":21,"publisher":"Springer Science and Business Media LLC","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,6,20]],"date-time":"2024-06-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1718841600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,6,20]],"date-time":"2024-06-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1718841600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100005760","name":"University of Gothenburg","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100005760","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["link.springer.com"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["BMC Musculoskelet Disord"],"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Low back pain, a common problem worldwide, causes more global disability than any other condition and is associated with high costs to society. This observational registry-based study describes the current trends in the medical treatment of neuropathic low back pain in the Swedish region of V\u00e4stra G\u00f6taland, which has a population of 1.7\u00a0million. The study aims to; (1) identify the prevalence of neuropathic low back pain within the study population; (2) to explore the patterns of medical treatment utilization, including the prevalence and distribution of opioids (OG) and analgesics specified for neuropathic low back pain (NG) and (3) to evaluate the long-term trends and changes in medical treatment practice for neuropathic low back pain over the study period.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>This study includes a descriptive analysis of aggregated data extracted from the Swedish primary care registry VEGA and the pharmaceutical prescription registry Digitalis between the years 2017 and 2021. The data were stratified by year, age, gender, pharmaceutical code (ATC), and sub-diagnoses and presented as the prevalence of unique patients retrieving prescribed medication within six months before or after a registered diagnosis of neuropathic low back pain. The pharmaceutical codes were furthermore grouped into two groups depending on their mechanism of action; opioid group (OG) and neuropathic group (NG).<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>In all four diagnosis groups, more patients used opioid analgesics than neuropathic analgesics. The greatest difference between the opioid group and neuropathic group was in the lumbar spinal stenosis diagnosis group (67.1% vs. 40.6%), followed by the lumbar root canal stenosis diagnosis (65.9% vs. 44.2%), the nerve root and plexus compressions in intervertebral disc disorders diagnosis (57.5% vs. 40.8%), and lumbago with sciatica diagnosis (38.4% vs. 22.7%).<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusions<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>The trends suggest a general increase in the prescription rate and therefore patients\u2019 use of neuropathic analgesics for neuropathic pain associated with the studied diagnoses. However, opioid treatment remains the most common. The results indicate that the treatment for neuropathic low back pain needs to be improved.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1186\/s12891-024-07599-4","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,6,20]],"date-time":"2024-06-20T13:03:30Z","timestamp":1718888610000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":7,"title":["Current trends in the medical treatment of neuropathic low back pain: a Swedish registry-based study of 1.7\u00a0million people"],"prefix":"10.1186","volume":"25","author":[{"given":"Linus","family":"Nyqvist","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5920-293X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Josefin","family":"\u00c5kerstedt","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Olof","family":"Thoreson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,6,20]]},"reference":[{"issue":"3","key":"7599_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"280","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ejpain.2008.04.005","volume":"13","author":"CM Wenig","year":"2009","unstructured":"Wenig CM, Schmidt CO, Kohlmann T, Schweikert B. 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Cost of low back pain: results from a national register study in Sweden. Eur Spine Journal: Official Publication Eur Spine Soc Eur Spinal Deformity Soc Eur Sect Cerv Spine Res Soc. 2018;27(11):2875\u201381.","journal-title":"Eur Spine Journal: Official Publication Eur Spine Soc Eur Spinal Deformity Soc Eur Sect Cerv Spine Res Soc"},{"key":"7599_CR7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e53","DOI":"10.1017\/S1463423620000523","volume":"21","author":"O Thoreson","year":"2020","unstructured":"Thoreson O, Aminoff A, Parai C. The one-year prevalence of nonspecific back pain in public primary health care establishments among 1.7 million people in western Sweden. Prim Health Care Res Dev. 2020;21:e53.","journal-title":"Prim Health Care Res Dev"},{"key":"7599_CR8","unstructured":"Fritzell P, H\u00e4gg O, Gerdhem P, Abbott A, Songsong A, Parai C et al. 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Reg.no.: 2022-02601-02. Included data was retrieved from governmental health care register with all public funded health care. Patients informed consent to participate of the VEGA register is approved when submitting to public health care as a patient. All applications to retrieve data from the VEGA register must include an ethical approval from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority. The retrieved data from the VEGA register was aggregated to the authors and with no possibility to identify unique individuals or personally identifiable data. Sex is defined by the social security number by the VEGA register and the retrieved data was therefore arranged by sex and not gender, and no social security number were included. Informed consent was obtained from all patients and\/or their legal guardian(s) through the public health care registries used within the study.","order":2,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Ethics approval and consent to participate"}},{"value":"Not applicable.","order":3,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Consent for publication"}},{"value":"The authors declare they have no competing interests.","order":4,"name":"Ethics","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Competing interests"}}],"article-number":"486"}}