Effects of remote ischemic conditioning on conditioned pain modulation and cardiac autonomic modulation in women with knee osteoarthritis: placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial protocol

BACKGROUND: It is estimated that over 240 million people worldwide have osteoarthritis, which is a major contributor to chronic pain and central changes in pain processing, including endogenous pain modulation. The autonomic nervous system plays a crucial role in the pain regulatory process. One of the main mechanisms of remote ischemic conditioning is neuronal signaling from the preconditioned extremity to the heart. This study aims to analyze the acute effect of remote ischemic conditioning on local pain, conditioned pain modulation, and cardiac autonomic control in women with knee osteoarthritis and to see if there is a correlation between them. METHODS: Women more than 50 years with knee osteoarthritis diagnosed according to the American College of Rheumatology criteria in the postmenopausal period will be considered eligible. The study will have blind randomization, be placebo-controlled, and be balanced in a 1:1 ratio. The total of 44 participants will be divided into two groups (22 participants per group): (i) remote ischemic conditioning and (ii) placebo remote ischemic conditioning. Protocol consisting of four cycles of total ischemia, followed immediately by four cycles of 5 min of vascular reperfusion, totaling 40 min. The primary outcomes in the protocol are conditioned pain modulation, which has the pressure pain threshold (kgf/cm(2)) as its primary outcome measure, and cardiac autonomic modulation, which has the indices found in heart rate variability as its primary outcome measure. Comparisons will be performed using generalized linear mixed models fitted to the data. For correlation, the Pearson or Spearman test will be used depending on the normality of the data. All analyses will assume a significance level of p < 0.05. DISCUSSION: It is believed that the results of this study will present a new perspective on the interaction between the pain processing system and the cardiovascular system; they will provide the professional and the patient with a greater guarantee of cardiovascular safety in the use of the intervention; it will provide knowledge about acute responses and this will allow future chronic intervention strategies that aim to be used in the clinical environment, inserted in the multimodal approach, for the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05059652. Registered on 30 August 2021. Last update on 28 March 2023. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13063-023-07527-2.