Airing Pain 116: Neuropathic Pain 2 of 2: Latest research

Half a cen­tu­ry worth of research exists on neu­ro­path­ic pain but what are the lat­est developments? 

This edi­tion of Air­ing Pain is facil­i­tat­ed by the neu­ro­path­ic pain spe­cial inter­est group (NeuP­SIG) of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­a­tion for the Study of Pain (IASP).

With the pre­vi­ous edi­tion of Air­ing Pain focus­ing on the ‘psy­cho’ and ‘social’ of the bio-psy­cho-social mod­el, this pro­gramme tack­les the ‘bio’ component.

In this sec­ond instal­ment in a mini-series on neu­ro­path­ic pain, Paul Evans delves into the lat­est sci­en­tif­ic devel­op­ments on the con­di­tion and the ways in which the gap between research and treat­ments could be bridged.

Fol­low­ing on from Air­ing Pain 115, which con­cen­trat­ed on tar­get­ed Pain Man­age­ment Pro­grammes, this edi­tion dis­cuss­es the ‘bio’ ele­ment on deal­ing with neu­ro­path­ic pain. Speak­ing to Pro­fes­sor Srini­vasa Raja, Paul dis­cuss­es what exact­ly is going on in the brain with neu­ro­path­ic pain. Pro­fes­sor Raja pro­vides a valu­able expla­na­tion of the sci­ence behind the condition.

Patrick M. Dougher­ty, Pro­fes­sor at the Depart­ment of Pain Med­i­cine at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas MD Ander­son Can­cer Cen­tre then shares with Paul the lat­est advances in neu­ro­path­ic pain research. He exam­ines the link between can­cer treat­ments and the con­di­tion as well as the poten­tial for treat­ments such as immunother­a­py to com­bat neu­ro­path­ic pain in the future.

Issues cov­ered in this pro­gramme include: Neu­ro­path­ic pain, the bio-psy­choso­cial mod­el, allo­dy­nia, nerve injury, post-her­pet­ic neu­ral­gia, pain after shin­gles, pain after ampu­ta­tion, dif­fer­ences between men and women, chemother­a­py-relat­ed pain, can­cer, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary pain teams, and per­son­alised pain man­age­ment ther­a­pies. 

Con­trib­u­tors:

• Patrick M. Dougher­ty, Pro­fes­sor at the Depart­ment of Pain Med­i­cine, Divi­sion of Anaes­the­si­ol­o­gy and Crit­i­cal Care, The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas MD Ander­son Can­cer Cen­tre, Houston.
• Pro­fes­sor Srini­vasa Raja (John Hop­kins School of Med­i­cine, USA).

More infor­ma­tion:

• Neu­ro­path­ic pain fact sheets and sup­port, IASP https://www.iasp-pain.org/GlobalYear/NeuropathicPain
• News, infor­ma­tion and sup­port at RELIEF, IASP Pain Research Forum https://relief.news/
• The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas MD Ander­son Can­cer Cen­tre https://www.mdanderson.org/?_ga=2.205594646.486343381.1563359882–181156349.1563359882
• Neu­ro­path­ic Pain infor­ma­tion, Nation­al Insti­tute for Health and Care Excel­lence (NICE), https://www.nice.org.uk/search?q=Neuropathic+pain
• Air­ing Pain 115: Neu­ro­path­ic Pain 1 of 2: Tar­get­ed Pain Man­age­ment Pro­grammes.