Potential Risk Factors for the Onset of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Type 1: A Systematic Literature Review

Table 4

Characteristics of the retrospective data literature synthesized.

Author	Number of initial sample	Outcome measure listed other than age and gender	Risk factor towards the onset of CRPS 1	Diagnostic criteria used for CRPS 1 diagnosis	Period time for inspection
Allen et al. 1999 [42]	134 CRPS patients; 70% female, 30% male; Mean group age at evaluation 41.8 (18–71) years	Inciting injury; Location; Job related occupation; Legal and worker compensation issues; Season; Bone scans; Treatment, medical and allied; Immobilisation; Myofascial component	A diagnostic bone scan was not predictive of a CRPS 1 diagnosis; The inciting event was sprains in 29%, surgical procedures in 24%, and fractures in 16%; since physician imposed immobilisation in either a cast or splint involved 47% of the sample, the possibility of immobilisation is raised as a possible risk factor as well	IASP	1992–1997; 5 years
de Mos et al. 2007 [5]	Source population 190 902 assessed from 46 general medical practices	Sensory; Vasomotor; Sudomotor; Motor/trophic; Neurologic; Complaints; Alternative diagnoses	Postmenopausal female gender and having a fracture; upper limb affected more frequently than the lower limb	3 sets of criteria Veldman, IASP, and Harden/Bruehl	1996–2005; 9 years
Sandroni et al. 2003 [4]	Source population 106 470 with unified access to all patient records	Clinical characteristics; Signs and symptoms; Laboratory tests; Response to treatment	Risks for onset of CRPS 1 were identified as female gender or suffering an upper limb fracture	IASP	1989–1999; 10 years
Duman et al. 2007 [43]	168 males in Turkish military hospitals	Inciting injury; Location; Hospitalisation	Inciting event for onset of RSD was fracture in 55.3%, incisive trauma in 16.7%, and soft tissue sprains/strains in 28%	IASP and three-phase bone scan	2003–2006; 3 years
van Rijn et al. 2007 [22]	Neurology outpatient clinic study of 185 patients with CRPS 1, 86.5% females, mean age at onset of CRPS 37.5 ± 15.4 years, 91% of whom developed dystonia	Clinical and temporal characteristics	Earlier onset of dystonia (<1 year) to be possibly related to the same mechanism and that delayed onset dystonia was related to another mechanism; 86.5% of participants were female; the inciting injury for CRPS 1 was soft tissue in 49.7%, fracture in 25.9%, and surgery in 24.3	IASP	1998–2004; 6 years
Anderson and Fallat 1999 [44]	33 patients with lower limb CRPS 1 or sympathetically maintained pain; 60% were female; group average age 43.5 ± 12.6 years)	Clinical characteristics; Type of injury or surgery; Time to diagnosis; Signs and symptoms; Treatment	Fracture was the most common cause for injury (45%); trauma accounted for 73%	Not given other than being confirmed by an anaesthesiologist at the pain management centre	1990–1997; 7 years