Description

• Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a pain syndrome that can be chronic and debilitating. It is divided into two subtypes and can have significant physical and psychosocial short- and long-term disability. Most cases are a result of a physical insult to an extremity such as trauma or surgery.
  • Type I: no nerve injury (reflex sympathetic dystrophy [RSD])
  • Type II: associated with a demonstrable nerve injury (causalgia)
• Synonym(s): traumatic erythromelalgia; Weir Mitchell causalgia; causalgia; RSD; posttraumatic neuralgia; sympathetically maintained pain

Epidemiology

• Incidence of 5.46 to 26.2/100,000 for type I and 0.82/100,000 for type II in United States (1,2)
• Peak age 50 to 70 years
• Predominant gender: female > male (3:1, 60–81%), favoring postmenopausal
• Recent studies found 3.8% occurrence after wrist fracture and 7% occurrence after intra-articular ankle fracture—both independent strong risk for CRPS.
• More prevalent in patients that report higher than usual expected pain in early phases of trauma. Latency depends on normal injury recovery time—prolonged pain (greater than 2 months) after injury hints at diagnosis.

Etiology and Pathophysiology

• Poorly understood activation of abnormal sympathetic reflex that lowers pain threshold
  • Increased excitability of nociceptive neurons in the spinal cord; “central sensitization”
  • Exaggerated responses to normally nonpainful stimuli (hyperalgesia, allodynia)
• Type II is associated with physical injury to nerve.
• Emerging information reveals CNS changes (functional, anatomic, biochemical) in addition to spinal level changes. Increased levels of immunomodulators suggest autoimmune component.

Genetics
No known genetic pattern

Risk Factors

• Minor or severe trauma (upper extremity fracture-particularly distal radius noted in 44% of those with CPRS)
• Surgery (particularly carpal tunnel release)
• Lacerations
• Burns
• Frostbite
• Casting/immobilization after extremity injury
• Penetrating injury
• Polymyalgia rheumatica
• Myocardial infarction (MI)
• Cerebral vascular accident

General Prevention

• Early mobilization after fracture, stroke, and MI has proven benefit in reducing incidence of CRPS.
• One study of wrist fractures found that addition of 500 mg/day of vitamin C lowered rates of CRPS.
• There is evidence that limiting use of tourniquets, liberal regional anesthetic use, and ensuring adequate perioperative analgesia can reduce the incidence of CRPS-I.

Commonly Associated Conditions

• Serious injury to bone and soft tissue
• Herpes zoster
• Postherpetic neuralgia results from partial or complete damage to afferent nerve pathways.
• Pain occurs in dermatomes as a sequela of herpes zoster.
• Signal exists for patients having comorbid painful conditions or psychiatric diagnosis at increased risk of developing CPRS.