IASP Webinars, Congress
The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) is offering a free webinar series as part of its 2020 Global Year for the Prevention of Pain. Webinars include physiotherapy to treat pain, nutrition for people experiencing chronic pain, prevention of orofacial pain, and pain prevention after musculoskeletal trauma. Topics will be added over the course of the year. Find out how to register at http://iasp.org.
IASP has rescheduled the World Congress on Pain in Amsterdam to take place June 27-July 1, 2021. The scientific program created initially for August 2020 will remain as intact as possible for the June 2021 Congress, according to an announcement by IASP. All planned plenaries, lecture-style sessions, hands-on workshops, and more than 2,500 poster presentations (plus late breaking abstracts) will be rescheduled. The IASP is also planning a series of virtual meetings this fall with workshops, posters, and symposia.
The early registration deadline for the 2021 Congress will be February 10, 2021.
WHO Addresses NSAID Risk of Complications With COVID-19
As of early May, there were conflicting reports about NSAIDs might increase the risk of complications in patients with COVID-19. On April 19, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a scientific brief on the matter after reviewing several studies.
The scientific brief concluded that, "At present there is no evidence of severe adverse events, acute health care utilization, long-term survival, or quality of life in patients with COVID-19, as a result of the use of NSAIDs."
However, the review cited some clear limitations, in particular that the evidence is indirect, based on data about NSAIDs and outcomes in other respiratory conditions.
"No direct evidence from patients with COVID-19, SARS, or MERS was available," the authors wrote. "Therefore, all evidence...should be considered indirect evidence with respect to the use of NSAIDs [in] management of COVID-19."
Only one randomized controlled trial included enough participants to identify rare severe adverse events. Further, the brief stated that it is likely that not all participants in the studies had viral respiratory infections, that not all studies distinguished among various types of NSAIDs, and that some of the older studies likely included patients taking NSAIDs that are no longer available because of adverse effects.
The "rapid systematic review" was carried out in March 2020 using data in MEDLINE, EMBASE, and WHO Global Database. The review included studies conducted in humans of any age with viral respiratory infections exposed to systemic NSAIDs of any kind. The review included all studies, regardless of size, on COVID-19, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
The review included a total of 73 studies (28 in adults, 46 in children, and 1 in both adults and children). All studies were concerned with acute viral respiratory infections or conditions commonly caused by respiratory viruses, but none specifically addressed COVID-19, SARS, or MERS. The review showed very low-certainty evidence on mortality among adults and children.
The review could not make clear conclusions about the effects of NSAIDs on the risk for ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke and myocardial infarction in adults with acute respiratory infections. (See The use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs [NSAIDs] in patients with COVID-19. https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/the-use-of-non-steroidal-anti-.)