Neuropathic Pain: Mechanism-Based Therapeutics

• Published in: Annual review of pharmacology and toxicology Vol. 60; no. 1; pp. 257 - 274
• Main Authors: Bannister, Kirsty, Sachau, Juliane, Baron, Ralf, Dickenson, Anthony H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Annual Reviews 06-01-2020
• Subjects: clinical targets; neurobiology; neuropathic pain; neuropathy; patient clusters; sensory phenotypes; neurobiology; sensory phenotypes; clinical targets; neuropathy; neuropathic pain; patient clusters
• ISSN: 0362-1642; 1545-4304
• DOI: 10.1146/annurev-pharmtox-010818-021524

Neuropathic pain (NeP) can result from sources as varied as nerve compression, channelopathies, autoimmune disease, and incision. By identifying the neurobiological changes that underlie the pain state, it will be clinically possible to exploit mechanism-based therapeutics for maximum analgesic effect as diagnostic accuracy is optimized. Obtaining sufficient knowledge regarding the neuroadaptive alterations that occur in a particular NeP state will result in improved patient analgesia and a mechanism-based, as opposed to a disease-based, therapeutic approach to facilitate target identification. This will rely on comprehensive disease pathology insight; our knowledge is vastly improving due to continued forward and back translational preclinical and clinical research efforts. Here we discuss the clinical aspects of neuropathy and currently used drugs whose mechanisms of action are outlined alongside their clinical use. Finally, we consider sensory phenotypes, patient clusters, and predicting the efficacy of an analgesic for neuropathy.