http://goo.gl/6o3vm7
Non-narcotic treatments for chronic pain that work well in people, not just mice, are sorely needed. Drawing from human pain genetics, an international team led by Boston Children's Hospital demonstrates a way to break the cycle of pain hypersensitivity without the development of addiction, tolerance or side effects.
Their findings, reported June 17 in the journal Neuron, could lead to treatments for chronic pain conditions caused by nerve damage, such as diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) and post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN), as well as chronic inflammation, likerheumatoid arthritis. Current treatments provide meaningful pain relief in only about 15 percent of patients.
"Most pain medications that have been tested in the past decade have failed in phase II human trials despite performing well in animal models," notes Clifford Woolf, MD, PhD, director of Boston Children's F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center and a co-senior investigator on the study with Michael Costigan, PhD. "Here, we used human genetic findings to guide our search from the beginning."