Anesthesiology News - Progress, If No Breakthroughs, in Chronic Post-op Pain

The emerging recognition that many patients develop chronic pain after surgery has spurred a host of behavioral and anatomic research.So far, these studies have yet to produce any breakthroughs in the understanding, and more importantly for patients, the treatment of the problem. But during a session at the 2012 annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, experts said the question was not whether, but when, those treatments would arrive."Not surprisingly, chronic postsurgical pain has become a popular topic," said Timothy Brennan, MD, PhD, the Samir Gergis Professor and Vice Chair for Research at the University of Iowa's Roy J. and Lucile A. Carver School of Medicine, in Iowa City. "Compared with a patient who develops an injury after a car accident, with surgical patients we know when our patients are going to get injured, and we know what type of injury is going to occur: the surgery. So, I think our goal will be to study surgical patients and evaluate their pain responses when they don't have this premeditated injury, then follow them through the postoperative period in the hope that we can learn to predict chronic postsurgical pain and the factors related to its development."Several studies have associated the development of chronic postsurgical pain and other unfavorable long-term outcomes with somatic and psychological predictors. A 2007 Dutch investigation (Ann Surg 2007;245:487-494) in 625 patients, for example, found that psychological factors s...
Source: Psychology of Pain - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs