Tantawy Sayed A, Kamel Dalia M, Abdelbasset Walid Kamal
Department of Physiotherapy, Centre of Radiation, Oncology and Nuclear Medicine, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt.
Department of Physiotherapy, College of Medical and Health Sciences, Ahlia University, Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain.
J Pain Res. 2017 Dec 27;11:77-82. doi: 10.2147/JPR.S154815. eCollection 2018.
Chronic orchialgia is defined as testicular pain, which may be either unilateral or bilateral, lasting for more than 3 months. It disturbs a patient's daily activities and quality of life (QoL), inciting the patient to search for treatments to alleviate the pain. It is estimated that 25% of chronic orchialgia cases are idiopathic.
The purpose of this study was to investigate how effective transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) is in pain reduction and how it consequently affects the QoL in patients with idiopathic chronic orchialgia (ICO).
Seventy-one patients were randomly assigned to group A (study group), which included 36 patients who received TENS and analgesia, and group B (control group), which included 35 patients who received analgesia only. The outcome measures were the participants' demographic data and results of the visual analog scale (VAS) and QoL questionnaire. These outcomes were measured before and after 4 weeks of treatment and at 2-month follow-up.
The results showed that compared to pretreatment, there was a significant reduction in pain postintervention and at 2-month follow-up in group A (<0.0001 and <0.001, respectively; =7.1) as well as a significant improvement in QoL at these time points (<0.0001 and <0.0001, respectively). There were no significant differences in the VAS score and QoL in group B at different time points of evaluation.
The findings indicate that TENS is effective in reducing pain and improving patients' QoL in cases of ICO. TENS is an easy-to-use, effective, noninvasive, and simple method for ICO-associated pain control and QoL improvement.
慢性睾丸疼痛被定义为睾丸疼痛，可为单侧或双侧，持续超过3个月。它干扰患者的日常活动和生活质量（QoL），促使患者寻求缓解疼痛的治疗方法。据估计，25%的慢性睾丸疼痛病例为特发性。
本研究的目的是调查经皮电刺激神经疗法（TENS）在减轻疼痛方面的效果如何，以及它如何影响特发性慢性睾丸疼痛（ICO）患者的生活质量。
71例患者被随机分为A组（研究组），包括36例接受TENS和镇痛治疗的患者，以及B组（对照组），包括35例仅接受镇痛治疗的患者。观察指标为参与者的人口统计学数据、视觉模拟量表（VAS）结果和生活质量问卷。这些指标在治疗4周前后以及2个月随访时进行测量。
结果显示，与治疗前相比，A组干预后及2个月随访时疼痛显著减轻（分别为<0.0001和<0.001；=7.1），且这些时间点的生活质量显著改善（分别为<0.0001和<0.0001）。B组在不同评估时间点的VAS评分和生活质量无显著差异。
研究结果表明，TENS在减轻ICO患者疼痛和改善生活质量方面有效。TENS是一种易于使用、有效、无创且简单的方法，可用于控制ICO相关疼痛和改善生活质量。
