Time: 11:30 a.m. -1:00 p.m.
Location: Dental Sciences Building, Room D7-11
Greetings,
The next meeting of the Pain Journal Club will be Tuesday October 14th.
For the past decade a major concern in the pain field has been the shortage of drugs available to treat chronic pain. One can point the finger in many different directions but the bottom line is there exists a critical need for more effective pharmacotherapy’s for pain. If we look at the available drug classes used to treat chronic pain we see that NSAIDS, opiates, anticonvulsants and antidepressants are at the top of the list. Two of these drug classes were discovered by Mother Nature and the other two are off-label uses of drugs developed for other conditions. The simple message is that we are not very good at drug discovery in the pain field and if we are to succeed in the future something needs to change.
The discussion related to a need for better drug discovery raises the question of whether we should continue to put more resources into something we don’t do very well or pay more attention to far more effective multidisciplinary (integrative) strategies of pain management that have no side effects and a much longer duration of effect. There are those who promote the need for new strategies and collaborations between pharmaceutical, academic, and public entities to advance research to identify new therapeutic targets that will lead to the development of better pain therapies. It is not unreasonable to ask if this is all that is needed or do we need something far more dramatic to happen for us to get a better result.
Moving towards the future a decision is needed as to what needs to change to get a different result or whether we need to put aside our efforts of drug discovery and invest more resources in strategies that have a proven track record. The attached paper provides a good background and perspective on this topic that should serve as the foundation for an interesting discussion.
I want to remind everyone that pain journal club is a great educational opportunity that provides something for all who attend. I encourage all students and trainees to attend and present papers in their area of interest. I can guarantee you based on our past history that no matter what the topic there will always be an interesting discussion……so join us for what promises to have a little something for everyone.
Hope to see you next week!!
Please circulate to those you think might be interested in this topic!!
translationa pain res. (porreca)