THE 2019 BROADFOOT TRUST PRIZE

By Andrew Somogyi

The 2019 Broadfoot Trust Prize for Outstanding Pain Research from the New Zealand Pain Society was awarded to a trans-Tasman collaboration between Andrew Somogyi and Daniel Barratt (University of Adelaide) and, David Rice (first author), Peter McNair, Gwyn Lewis, Robert Borotkanics (Auckland University of Technology), Michal Kluger (Department of Anaesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine) and Matthew Walker (Department of Orthopaedic Surgery) both from the Waitema District Health Board) for their paper “Predictors of persistent postsurgical pain after total knee arthroplasty: A prospective study” published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia 121(4), 804-812, 2018 (doi: 10.1016/j/bja.2018.05.070). Many previous studies were retrospective in nature or only considered a small number of preoperative variables, whereas this study in 300 New Zealand patients undergoing primary unilateral TKA studied a large number of psychological, neurophysiological, genetic, clinical and surgical factors. The prevalence of moderate to severe persistent postsurgical pain was found to be 21% (6 months) and 16%(12 months) after surgery, with more than 50% having likely neuropathic pain. Preoperative pain intensity, expected pain, trait anxiety, and temporal summation were the major factors identified. The study was funded by grants from the Australia and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists and the Auckland University of Technology.

Declaration: The Author has nothing to declare Professor in Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology at the University of Adelaide whose research involves the clinical pharmacology including pharmacogenomics of acute and chronic pain treatments. Andrew delivered the Bonica Lecture at the 2017 APS meeting in Adelaide.