Session Information
Date: Saturday, November 16, 2019
Session Title: General Rehabilitation Case & Research Report
Session Time: 11:15am-12:45pm
Location: Research Hub - Kiosk 1
Disclosures: Vy T. Phan: Nothing to disclose
Objective: To determine if there is consensus regarding the definition, terminology and criteria for myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) in the published literature.
Design: Literature review
Setting: Electronic search engines
Participants: Five reviewers assessed the articles for terms used to diagnose MPS. All authors contributed to analysis of the terms.
Interventions: Not applicable
Main Outcome Measures: Distribution and combination of clusters used to diagnose MPS, frequency of Travell and Simons (T&S) criteria used to diagnose MPS, and frequency of MPS articles published over time.
Results: PubMed and Web of Science were queried using the search term “myofascial pain syndrome”, returning 923 articles. Included were full-text, primary research articles containing "MPS" in the title. This generated 182 articles. At least 2 reviewers read the articles, identifying 147 terms, which were consolidated into 122 terms. The authors categorized the terms under one of six clusters thought to be necessary for the diagnosis of MPS: “trigger points”, “muscle”, “pain”, “nervous system”, “fascia”, and “other”. Application of the T&S criteria was noted. Diagnostic terms pertaining to clusters “trigger points”, “muscle” or “pain” were prevalent in >90% of the articles, “nervous system” in 43%, and “fascia” in 19%. The 73 articles that applied T&S criteria showed similar cluster distributions. Most articles included a combination of 4 clusters in the MPS diagnosis. The number of MPS articles published since 2010 doubled that of the prior decade, 117 articles compared to 52, respectively.
Conclusions: Most articles used 4 clusters for defining MPS. However, more than 7% did not use the clusters "trigger point" or "muscle", and only 40% of publications used T&S criteria. This lack of uniformity in terminology challenges the reliability of current MPS diagnosis. Increased consistency in the use of terminology is needed to enhance basic mechanistic studies aiming to elucidate the underlying pathophysiology of MPS.
Level of Evidence: Level V
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
Phan VT, Tandon H, Shah J, DeStefano S, Srbely J, Sikdar S, Clouse A, Gandhi A, Gerber L, Kumbhare D. Determining If There Is a Consensus on Definitions and Terms Used to Describe Myofascial Pain Syndrome: A Scoping Review [abstract]. PM R. 2019; 11(S2)(suppl 2). https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/determining-if-there-is-a-consensus-on-definitions-and-terms-used-to-describe-myofascial-pain-syndrome-a-scoping-review/. Accessed May 15, 2025.« Back to AAPM&R Annual Assembly 2019
PM&R Meeting Abstracts - https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/determining-if-there-is-a-consensus-on-definitions-and-terms-used-to-describe-myofascial-pain-syndrome-a-scoping-review/