Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on Patients With Chronic Orofacial Pain
TerminatedPhase 2NCT01883245
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This study has no listed site in Canada in this snapshot. It is included as part of the worldwide chronic pain corpus.
Brief summary (from the registry)
Patients affected by chronic orofacial pain represent an emergent medical problem due to the lack of knowledge on the cause, pathophysiology and psychology of many of these conditions, that belongs to a multifactorial origin. Particularly, temporomandibular joint disorders involve a series of symptoms that refers both to intrinsic and extrinsic joint conditions where pain can be associated to a reduction of the joint movement, click or to other sounds of the joint. The lack of a recognized causal therapy led to the suggestion of many treatment modalities with a multidisciplinary approach for the management of symptoms that include the use of occlusal splints, physiotherapy-speech therapy, behavioral and physical therapy, drugs, chirurgical approaches. In most cases these strategies together allow the control of the symptoms, even though they aren't completely resolutive. In these patients is frequent chronic pain and ineffectiveness of common drugs used. It has been demonstrated how transcranial electrical brain stimulation with direct current (tDCS) is able to reduce the intensity and the duration of chronic pain. Stimulating the motor cortex can reduce pain by modulating brain activities in the areas involved in cerebral circuits controlling pain, such as thalamus, facilitating the descendant inhibitory mechanisms and enhancing the number of opiates receptors. This clinical trial is based on the evaluation of the effects of tDCS on pain and on activities daily living (ADL) participation patients with chronic orofacial pain that don't respond to other treatments.
Study details
- Official title
- Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) in Patients With Chronic Orofacial Pain Unresponsive to Conventional Treatment. A Randomized Controlled Trial.
- Conditions
- Orofacial Pain
- Interventions
- Device: real tDCS
- Device: sham tDCS
- Sponsor
- University Hospital of Ferrara
- Start date
- 2013-05
- Primary completion
- 2013-10
- Sex
- All
- Age range
- from 18 Years to 75 Years
- Healthy volunteers
- true
- Results posted
- No results posted in this snapshot
- Countries
- Italy
- Total sites listed
- 1
Eligibility criteria
Show eligibility criteria (verbatim from the registry)
Inclusion Criteria: * Male and female between 18 and 75 years old * Clinic history of previous orofacial and/or dental surgery * Chronic orofacial pain for more than a year measurable by the VAS more than 3 . * Pain not responsive to pharmacological treatment (analgesic, anti inflammatory, opiates, antidepressant drugs and physiotherapy modalities) Exclusion Criteria: * Contraindication to tDCS: presence of metallic implants that can be stimulated, moved or overheated by electric current, positive anamnesis for epilepsy, implantable systems ( ventriculoperitoneal shunt, pacemaker, intracranial pumps, intracranial metallic systems) * Major neurological or psychiatric pathologies * Pregnancy * Severe hepatorenal and cardiopulmonary diseases
Source: ClinicalTrials.gov (US National Library of Medicine), snapshot October 2026. Check the registry for current recruiting status. Record: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT01883245