The phantom-pain syndrome: pathogenesis, treatment, prevention (Review of the literature)

Abstract

Limb amputation leads to many negative medical, psychological, and social consequences, and the phantom-pain syndrome among which plays a leading role both by its incidence, and by the severity of clinical manifestations. The incidence of this pathology development after amputation is evaluated in the range from 44.6 % to 90 %. Relevance of this problem is caused by increasing the number of injured persons in military conflicts, natural disasters, and industrial accidents, as well as by high proportion of occlusion vascular involvements of the lower limbs in the morbidity structure. The disease pathogenesis highlighted in the article, and current approaches to the phantom-pain syndrome diagnosis, treatment and prevention considered.