EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE Evidence-Based Interventional Pain Medicine According to Clinical Diagnoses 21. Phantom Pain

n Abstract: Phantom pain is pain caused by elimination or interruption of sensory nerve impulses by destroying or injuring the sensory nerve fibers after amputation or deaf-ferentation. The reported incidence of phantom limb pain after trauma, injury or peripheral vascular diseases is 60% to 80%. Over half the patients with phantom pain have stump pain as well. Phantom pain can also occur in other parts of the body; it has been described after mastectomies and enucleation of the eye. Most patients with phantom pain have intermittent pain, with intervals that range from 1 day to several weeks. Even intervals of over a year have been reported. The pain often presents itself in the form of attacks that vary in duration from a few seconds to minutes or hours. In most cases, the pain is experienced distally in the miss